"Seek ye first the political kingdom" said Nkrumah vs "Forget politics" said Musewe

“You will not get any marks for answering the question YOU wanted asked so please read the question carefully, twice or thrice if necessary, before you start answering it,” pleaded my High School Teacher before the start of each examination. If he is still alive today, he must be despairing at what he sees; Zimbabweans have developed the knack for answering the question no one asked.

“I want here to cast a vision that Zimbabwe can be the Singapore, Taiwan or tiger of Africa with a trillion dollar economy in 30 years’ time by 2045. All we have to do is to believe in that idea,” asserted Vince Musewe.

“Africa has been stagnant at the philosophical, the genesis, and the creative level and is stuck with an old paradigm with old philosophies which were not designed to prosper Africa. This has become the ultimate African nemesis” and so says my dear friend Hannington Mubaiwa, the visionary from whom I have borrowed the ideas herein..” he explained.

“Zimbabweans must realize that unless and until we crash the old and re-entrepreneur, (thinking of the next great possibilities), re-engineer, be creative and rebrand ourselves, we cannot innovate our market value on the global free enterprise market place to tap into capital. This capital is not from governments but in the free market.”

His whole argument, or “paradigm and re-engineering” was based on the assumption it is us, the individuals, who needed to change and to believe in our own abilities and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with our political system and our political leaders.

“Let’s forget the politics. That is a side show merely designed to satisfy short sightedness and the selfish ambition of both the local and international predatory cabal with little interest in creating sustainable societies in Africa,” he said.

Of course he is wrong, hopelessly wrong; politics is important everything evolves round politics.

Zimbabwe is facing serious social and economic disruptions right now because of the protracted power cuts by ZESA, for example. Why? Politics!

ZESA is not able to meet the nation’s electrical power requirements because the power sector, like every other sector of the nation’s economy, is in a deplorable state of rot and decay because of 35 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. 35 years of misrule by this corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF regime. The nation has been stuck with this economic mess unable to force the regime to end the criminal waste of material and human resources or, better still, remove the regime from power because we have a de facto one party dictatorship. Regime change is taboo.

With this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship, no amount of Mr Musewe’s paradigm re-engineering or self-belief would have save us from the economic mess we now find ourselves in! Indeed we are in this mess precisely because we have gone out of our way to forget politics because we did not want to confront the tyrant Mugabe and his thugs with the truth that politics is important and we must deal with it.

For the last 35 years we have failed to deal decisively with the issue of free, fair and credible elections at the very heart of the nation’s political problem of the de facto one-party dictatorship and we have paid dearly for this. Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess where the nation is facing economic meltdown with unemployment a nauseating 90% plus, millions are living in abject poverty, millions are starving whilst prime farms are not utilized, etc. on the one hand. And on the other hand we know we need to end the Zanu PF dictatorship to end the economic meltdown but are too naïve to admit it.

 “Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added unto you…,” said African Visionary and Ghana’s First President Kwame Nkrumah.

Tyrants like Robert Mugabe accepted this political ethos before independence with the slogan “One man one vote!” They soon corrupted it by adding “Only if the vote is a vote for Zanu PF!” to secure their “no regime change” mantra.

People like Vince Musewe has sought to appease the tyrants by trying to work within the confines of the political framework tyrants like Mugabe set for them in which they can change everything else but the political status quo. Politics became the sacred cow. So people like Musewe have been trying to re-invent the wheel that is not round and coming up with interesting new shapes like triangle or something equally useless!

Politics and, more specifically, the right of every Zimbabwean to a democratic and meaningful vote are very important. To pretend otherwise is nonsense!

In Zimbabwe we must seek therefore the implementation of all the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA design to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and restore the democratic right of every Zimbabwean to a free and meaning vote. It is only when we have secured this right that we can force Zanu PF to address the problems causing the economic meltdown or replace the regime with one that will address the problems. Implement the reforms and we will stop the economic meltdown, something Musewe’s re-engineering will not do and yet promises to grow the nation’s $15 billion to $1 trillion by 2045!