In our series of viewpoints from African journalists, film-maker and columnist Farai Sevenzo considers how hard it is for men in power in Africa to become heroes.
Africa's week has been interesting as usual.
A painting, The Spear, which depicts the South African President Jacob Zuma, with his trousers unzipped and his member protruding, has tested the republic's tolerance for its liberal constitution and freedom of expression.
As lawsuits were thrown around it was said the artists were out of tune with the masses, who saw no African "Ubuntu" in mocking a sitting president in this manner.
South Africans, fiercely proud of their libertarian constitution find themselves imprisoned by it�
Over in Mali, their caretaker President Dioncounda Traore was accosted by a baying mob accusing him of dragging his feet over the transition to democracy after their coup.
The poor man was beaten by a many headed monster which may well have been a rent-a-crowd hired courtesy of the junta leaders.
The office of the presidency has been abused and mocked in the most un-African manner.
The cynics will snigger and say, "So what, presidents are not demi-Gods and they must be teased."
f a man is in the headlines for his procreational prowess and his many wives, then isn't it fitting to show President Zuma with his phallus taking centre stage?
Such cynics ignore cultural sensitivities.
For even today in this hurtling 21st Century, with its attention deficit disorder, celebrity obsession and shallow understanding of life, we would be hard pressed not to find polygamists in our lineage.
And what is more, those who are quickest to mock are those furthest away from such ancestral backgrounds.
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