As I was preparing to interview Nelson Chamisa, the popular leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC Alliance via WhatsApp, my domestic worker excitedly told me she had been listening to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC). The presenter had announced that “they” (read the notorious Central Intelligence Organisation) was looking for Chamisa, to arrest him.

When I quizzed him on this, he said the unit was always trying to arrest him for one thing or another. “But this time it is because I will not agree to take up a position that they have created for me that they think will give their government some sort of legitimacy, when that could not be further from the truth”, he said...