Africa-Press – Mozambique. A school text book which contains an insulting reference to Mozambique’s best known rap artist, Edson da Luz (better known by his stage name Azagaia) was withdrawn more than two years ago, and the Education Ministry says that any circulation of the book today would be illegal.
Cited by the independent television station, STV, a spokesperson for the Education Ministry, Silvestre Dava, said that the eighth grade book was part of the education system between 2016 and 2022, but was discontinued in 2023.
It was written in 2014 and began to be sold in 2015. But circulation of the book today would be illegal, the spokesperson said, because it no longer had any government authorisation and contradicted the reforms being made in the school curriculum.
However, the book clearly has been circulating, since reporters came across it and found that it contained a section on Azagaia mentioning that he had once been arrested for possession of drugs (cannabis). The story did not say that the case never came to trial and it was never proved that Azagaia was the owner of the drug.
This looks like a crude attempt to link one of the country’s most popular musicians to drug trafficking.
Although the fact that the government has disowned the book will be welcomed, questions remain – why was the defamatory section on Azagaia included in the first place? After all, it would not have been difficult to include a serious text on Azagaia’s music, rather than suggesting that he trafficked in drugs.
This is just the latest in a long line of scandals concerning textbooks. In 2022, the blunders discovered in the fifth and sixth grade social science books were so serious that the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption (GCCC) opened criminal proceedings against the publisher and against nine staff of the Education Ministry.
The GCCC found that publishers had offered “presents” (a polite term for bribes) to Ministry officials.
Among the mistakes noted were basic errors in geography, including locating Zimbabwe on the shores of the Red Sea.
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