Everybody’s
business is never done since no one person is everybody and we each expect
everybody else and not us to carry out the task(s). Nowhere is this more true
that in politics; everybody is expected to how the political leaders to account
but in Zimbabwe very few people ever do this.
In the
early 1990s the Zanu PF regime adopted the IMF and WB sponsored Economic
Structural Adjustment Programmes (ESAP) which marked the end of the regime’s
free spending, at least on the masses. The regime started to implement savage
cuts in such areas as health and educations triggering the yearly student
demonstrations of the time. It was during this time that I met a mother who had
a son at UZ and objected strongly to these UZ student demos.
She accepted
the two main points behind the student demos; one, that cutting education
funding would reduce the quality of education and the make it inaccessible to
the poorer families. Two, that the regime was cutting education funding and
other soft-targets areas but doing nothing to end the waste is the bloated
cabinet and army, for example. The crux of her objections to student demos was
simple as well as it was selfish she did not wanted the demos disrupting her
son’s studies.
“Peter
will be the first University graduate in the family,” she argued with finality.
No one
could deny that the demos were disrupting the students’ studies and, yes a
number were always expelled for taking part in the demos. But, if the common
good of a quality education for all was to be defended against a corrupt and
indifferent regime that does not care, society must accept there would be risks
and that someone has to stand up and be counted.
If our
commitment to the common good is to be tampered with selfish consideration then
this is everybody’s business that will never be done. If the truth be told, every
year there is bound to be some students who will be “the first University graduates
in the family”.
It was
clear that Peter was “not interested in student politics” as he called it. He
had at one of the few very high fee paying Colleges, which where the haunt of
white students. The students played rugby and cricket and not football and
Peter had toured Europe playing rugby in his last two senior years.
He
spoke with a pronounced British accent; speaking through his nose than mouth
hence the reason people like him were called the “Nose brigade!” He paid dearly
for his complete lack of interest in what was going on at the University.
One
day, wearing his trade mark NYC base-ball cap with earphone plugged in his
ears, he blundered into the Riot Police. Instead of turning back and find
another route he had ploughed on confident the Riot Police would see he was a cut
above the other students. After all he was a Minister’s son!
The
only thing the Riot Police noticed with great interest was that Peter was defenceless,
those cowardly Riot Police are like the cowardly hyena whose attack instinct is
roused the more defenceless the victim happen to be. The Riot Police were all
over Peter like army ants attaching a scorpion.
Fearing
for his life, Peter forgot his “nosing” and cried out for help in Shona with a
distinctly “strong rural African accent”, according to the students who heard
him and rescued him.
Sadly
the student lost the battle to stop Zanu PF cutting education funding and
compromised the quality of education. Today Zimbabwe produces 50 000 plus
University graduates every year, Mugabe caps them all himself as he is the
Chancellor of all Universities in the country, 20 or so. The quality is so poor
some graduates have honours degrees but do not know what a verb is. No wonder
Zanu PF Chefs have been sending their children to SA, UK, USA, Far East, etc.
for their University studies, they know the degree awarded locally is not worth
the paper it is written on.
The
nation has paid its heaviest price for failing to stop the Zanu PF gravy train;
36 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption has taken its toll as
today the economy lies in ruins, millions are out of work, basic services like
health have all but collapsed, etc. To make matters worse, the country is facing
a serious drought, unlike in the past, its silos are starting on empty.
The
international community which has stepped in to help feed the nation, has its
work cut out with the raging war in Syria, Yemen and other hotspots. Besides
with stories of how Mugabe is pocketing $2 billion a years from all the looting
and plunder going on in Marange and Chiadzwa; donors are loathed to help a
country so rich and yet so wasteful.
Before
donors will step in to help they want to see Zimbabweans to take the business
of stopping Zanu PF corruption and waste with the seriousness and urgency the
matter demands. Instead of expecting others to step on the plate and fight to
end Zanu PF corruption, vote rigging, etc. Zimbabweans should be asking
themselves what they can do help in the fight.
Individuals
like Itai Dzamara did not wait for other to tell Mugabe he has failed and must
go. He wrote the protest letter and delivered it to Mugabe. Only a handful of
friends who stood by him but that did not deter them. Few people even bother to
give him and his friend a word of encouragement even with their identity hidden
in the ether of the internet.
On 9
March 2016, it will be a full year since Itai Dzamara was kidnapped by the Zanu
PF regime to silence him. Itai was saying things that we should all have been
saying but did not have the guts to speak. There will be many gatherings to
remember Itai and what he stood for it is high time Zimbabweans from all walks
of life stood, as Itai did, and demand an end to this criminal waste of human
and material resource by this corrupt and tyrannical Mugabe regime.
Join the
Dzamara commemoration to protest the regime’s failure to have drugs in our
hospitals now when you still have the energy to do so because when you are sick
and dying for lack of the medicine, it will be too late.
If by
his death, Itai Dzamara has spurred Zimbabweans to realize that public affairs
and good governance are everybody’s business and we constitute everybody and
must make our contribution with all our heart, soul and sinew then his death
would not have been in vain!
2 comments:
Tsvangirai and his MDC friends failed to get even one reform implemented during the GNU, since the rigged elections these village idiots have done nothing to push for the implementation of the reforms. Nothing! Do they feel an sense of responsibility; they owe this nation free, fair and credible elections. Instead of pushing for reforms they are now preoccupied with forming coalition to contest elections with no reforms implemented.
If elections are rigged, as we know they would be as long as no reforms are implemented, no doubt Tsvangirai and company will complain that elections were rigged. One needs to have the patience of a saint to deal with such village idiots as Tsvangirai.
Zimbabweans have to wake up to the reality that there con man like Biti and Tsvangirai who will betray them again and again; these two are fighting to get back on the gravy train and they do not care how many times they abandon the main task of implementing the reforms and secure the people's freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote!
UGANDAN President Yoweri Museveni has spent at least over $7m on his 2016 election campaign in only two months, a report says.
According to reports, this amount was 12 times more than what his two main opposition rivals - combined - had spent.
$7 million, that is chicken feed compare to the $7 billion, at least, Mugabe spent in 2013. Mugabe has been getting $2 billion a year from the looting and plunder happening in Ma-range. He bought each of his Zanu PF parliamentary candidate that year a new car to cam-paign in, paid NIKUV $10 million to tamper with the voters roll, paid millions of dollars to UK and USA PR companies to spruce up his tarnished image, spent billions bussing support-ers to rallies and then one polling station to another to vote, etc.
Talk of uneven playing field, in Africa the oppositions have to play uphill so steep the ball rolls back into their own goal; the incumbent will win on own-goals alone! Even when it is clear they are playing against someone with a loaded dice; this has not stopped some opposition leaders taking their seat and placing their bet. There are plenty of reckless lunatics in Africa! They are gambling with the ordinary people whose right to free, fair and credible elections is the most important thing at stake here.
The opposition has not always demand democratic reforms with the seriousness and forceful-ness the matter demands. In the case of Zimbabwe, MDC was given the chance to change the system in a silver platter; all the party had to do was implement democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA. After five years of the GNU they failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one!
MDC leaders were warned repeatedly to implement the reforms but would not listen. They were then warned not to take part in the July 2013 elections with no reforms but again paid no heed. Now the village idiots are preparing for the next election even though not one re-form has been implemented!
Zimbabweans elected Tsvangirai and his MDC friends in a hurry but have been regretting it at leisure! With such a corrupt and incompetent opposition Zimbabweans will never get out of the hell-hole Mugabe landed them!
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