Shamuyarira died a pauper and they harried painted his house to hide the rot and decay - common features everywhere!

The late Nathan Shamuyarira died “with something in his heart that he wanted” said according to Margret Dongo and who better to trust to make sure the whole world got to hear of it that Ms Dongo, the self-appointed spokesperson of ex Zanu PF officials with a bone to chew with the party!

“We are appealing to the Mashonaland West province to take care of Mai Shamuyarira because she is reserved and cannot tell you her problems. Shamuyarira asked to see her.

“When I visited him just before his death, I could see that he had something in his heart that he wanted to say, that is why he invited me so that I would let the world know.”

What was in Shamuyarira’s heart is a story all too familiar to Zimbabweans; he was poor and destitute! He wanted Ms Dongo to see how poor and destitute he was so she can tell the world.

The Shamuyariras had fallen into such hard times his wife could not even visit him on his death bed because she had no money to get there.

“She was even struggling to raise money to visit baba (father) in hospital when he was ill but she could not tell anyone. It is her character,” a relative said; appealing to Zanu PF to help her. No doubt she will receive the pittance that the relatives of the select few declared national heroes get!

The Shamuyarira house was in such a neglected state it was harried painted and the potholes in the road leading to his house were harried repaired the day he died because Mugabe was going to visit.

Mugabe acknowledged that Shamuyarira had indeed died a pauper!

“Zanu PF has a tendency of forgetting its own, only to sing praises when the person is dead. Unfortunately, they are going to talk only about the positives. I am so disappointed that a house is painted around 4pm,” said Ms Dongo.

What is disappointing with people like Ms Dongo is her blinked view of the world round her. She only saw Shamuyarira’s house and the road leading to his house but failed to any other houses and roads in the rest of Borrowdale, the rest of Harare and the rest of the country! Because if she did, then she would have noticed that they too are in the same advanced state of rot and decay.

The whole country is in a state of rot and decay. Do people like Ms Dongo expect the house of every national heroes to well maintained, richly furnished with the very latest BMW car parked outside; little oasis in the middle of rot and decay? Mugabe’s $20 million mansion and few others houses are the exceptions, the corrupt few, they are not the rule.

“He knew what he stood for, very simple and you could not suspect him of any corruption,” commented Mugabe to the mourners. “He died a poor man and this was Nathan, but rich of course in his views.”

Nathan Shamayarira may have refused a former white-owned farm everyone else in the party got, some have more than one farm, and other corrupt tendencies rampant in Zanu PF circles but that is not to say he did not play his part in the establishment and longevity of the Zanu PF dictatorship; he did. As the country’s point independence Minister of Information he took it upon himself to ensure there was no freedom of expression and the country’s dominant public media saved Zanu PF’s selfish agenda above that on the nation. Mugabe praised Shamuyarira for this as he was laid to rest at National Heroes’ Acre!

In his funeral speech, Mugabe publicly denounced the present Minister Information, Professor Jonathan Moyo for having allowed stories of rampant corruption by Zanu PF officials to be made public. Nathan Shamuyarira ‘did not work against interests of the party.’ Mugabe said.

Of course saying nothing about corruption and stifling the voices of the ordinary people to create this monolithic one-man dictatorship was not even in the party’s interest much less that of the nation. If those like Shamuyarira are dying in abject poverty and they are some of the most senior party members; how then can anyone still say the policy saved the party well? The only individual who has benefited is Mugabe and the lucky, lucky few who have somehow managed to keep their place on the feed trough.

People like Shamuyarira served the tyrant and when he did not need them any more he discarded them as he has done with hundreds of thousands others before him.

I do not somehow think Shamuyarira was flatted by Mugabe’s eulogy of him dying a pauper “but rich of course in his views”. All those who have once believed in freedom, liberty and human dignity for all and have contributed in their own small way to attain that noble goal must have questioned themselves again and again to see what happened when the see what Mugabe and Zanu PF has done to the country.

The truth is Mugabe’s Zimbabwe in which he and the few ruling elite enjoyed absolute power, unfettered access to the nation’s wealth and riches and were not democratically accountable to the people was ideological bankrupt and political and economically unsustainable. It was doomed to fail, rot and decay! The failure, rotting and decaying is everywhere now; it was that those sent to harried paint Shamuyarira’s house and repair potholed road were trying to hide but clearly failed!

If Shamuyarira was indeed “rich in his views” then he must have died a very disappointed man; not so much that he was a pauper but that he had helped create this monster, Zanu PF that has destroyed everything good in the nation and reduced him and a million others into paupers – unblinkered view than that of Mai Dongo! Like Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, he must have died whispering, “What have I done? What have I done?”