April 1980, wherein Zimbabwe in South Eastern Africa.

At a packed football stadium, Bob Marley and the whalers step out on stage.

The crowd goes wild.

The country has just become Africa's newest independent nation.

The majority black population has finally been liberated from British and local white minority rule.

Some 40,000 people fill the pitch and line the terraces.

Among them is a wiery 56 year old man dressed in a crisp tailored suit.

In the eyes of many, Prime Minister Robert Mugabe stands here tonight as a freedom fighter.

But over 37 years, he will preside over a government of corruption and brutality,

lining the pockets of his cronies while torturing and abusing his own people.

A bookish intellectual who comes to wield tyrannical power.

A leader who will cling on until the age of 93, even after he drives Africa's most prosperous country to economic ruin.

What events, what history formed this dictator. And what say those who observed him in person?

And endured his regime right up until its dramatic end?

The Mugabe story coming soon from Noiza.