HARARE – Former President Robert Mugabe has been receiving medical treatment in Singapore and is now no longer able to walk.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is assisted by a protocol officer (L) as he leaves the podium after addressing the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

Mugabe, who ruled Zimbabwe for nearly four decades since independence from Britain in 1980, will be 95 next February.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who desposed Mugabe with the help of the military, made the announcement, but did not reveal the nature of Mugabe’s treatment.

Mnangagwa said Mugabe had been expected to return from Singapore in late October, but his health required he stay an extra month, and he is now expected back in Zimbabwe at the end of November.

“He is now old. Of course, he now is unable to walk but whatever he asks for we will provide,” Mnangagwa told supporters in Zvimba, Mugabe’s home area about 100km west of capital Harare.

“We are looking after him,” Mnangagwa added, labelling Mugabe as, “the founding father of free Zimbabwe”.

In the past, officials have said he was being treated for cataracts, denying frequent media reports that he had prostate cancer.

Towards the end of his reign, Mugabe was criticised for spending increasing amounts of time and money abroad receiving treatment in Malaysia and Singapore, while ordinary Zimbabweans had to make do with the country’s own under-resourced hospitals.-Zimlive