Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa has attracted wide criticism for boasting that he constructed a state-of-the-art mortuary in Kwekwe area and offered an award to the first family that took their kin there before burial.

Among those who did not find any comical side to his statement is opposition leader Nelson Chamisa, who warned the head of state that such an utterance would have the president impeached in a ‘normal’ country.

Chamisa also warned the Zimbabwe leader that his days in office were numbered.

“In other countries, Mnangagwa’s talk on mortuaries would have gotten him impeached a long time ago,” Chamisa told a local media outlet.

“When you see a president talk like that, celebrating such things like that it shows you he is out of touch with reality and that his days are numbered.”

While officially opening another mortuary in Gutu last week, Mnangagwa ‘cracked a joke’ on how he dangled a monetary prize to any family whose relative’s body would be first stored in a mortuary he had built.

But Nick Mangwana, the Information Ministry’s Permanent Secretary defended his boss against the strong criticism.

“There is something called dark/black humour, or gallows humour, this is legit humour which makes light of a subject oridinarily considered a taboo or sensitive,” he explained.

Mnangagwa ascended to power during an election conducted in 2018 after late strongman Robert Mugabe resigned following public pressure that ended his 37 years of autocratic rule amid jubilations and hope for economic growth.