“Kune anonzisisa, chokwadi
hachipudzi chinowaka!” so goes the Shona adage. (To him who hears and
understand, the truth does not destroy but builds!) It is in this enlightened context
that one must view Namibian President Hage Geingob’s candid words of advice to
both Zimbabwe’s leaders and people.
"We must get rid of
the days where we believed in strong presidents, personality cults, and that
some are (demi)-gods," he advised the leaders.
"We must know that
killing our people is not the way to go.
"If you do that, you
can't expect the world to respect you. They will intervene and tell you that
you are doing a wrong thing".
In the case of President
Mugabe the advice is coming too late; he has rigged elections and even murdered
over 30 000 of his people to establish and retain his one-party cum one-man
dictatorship.
President Mugabe and his
Zanu PF cronies have enjoyed absolute power for the last 36 years and their
greed for wealth has grown in leaps and bounds; they have more than the lion’s
share of the nation’s wealth, they are taking everything. President Mugabe
admitted in February that the country lost $15 billion of diamond revenue to “swindlers”.
It is no secret that Zanu PF leaders, including Mugabe himself, together with
the Chinese and other foreigner who are doing the mining are the swindlers.
So far, no one has been
arrested for this grand theft; confirming that the swindlers are the ruling
elite and they are above the law.
Last week, Harare Central
Hospital announced that it was stopping all operations because it did not have
essential drugs like painkillers; needless to say the smaller hospitals and
clinics are even worse off. So hundreds of ordinary Zimbabweans are dying every
day because the health service has all but collapsed for lack of funds whilst a
select few are pocketing billions of dollars.
The Zimbabwe government
has to pay for the health and other public needs of the 12 million population
from a misery $3.8 billion in collected revenue and billions of dollars of
potential diamond revenue is shared out amongst just a handful of the ruling
elite, the demi-gods!
President Hage Geingob’s
advice is clearly too late Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies; their hands are
bright red with all the innocent blood their have shed. And, now that their
primeval appetites have been fully aroused, their insatiable greed has gone
into overdrive, they cannot stop the looting.
Zanu PF’s 36 years of gross
mismanagement and rampant corruption have dragged the Zimbabwe economy into
total economic meltdown; the regime is nothing more than that a bacteria
culture that grows exponentially only to collapse suddenly after eating all the
available food.
Mugabe’s decades of
misrule have dragged Zimbabwe and the whole SADC region deeper and deeper into
the abyss and the import of President Geingob’s advice to the tyrant is that he
must expect the people of Zimbabwe, SADC and all those concerned about the
tragic consequences of his selfish greed to criticize him for it!
The Namibian President had
words of wisdom for the ordinary Zimbabweans too; “Zimbabweans, who are unhappy
with strongman President Robert Mugabe should fight for themselves,” he
advised, according to Namibian newspaper report.
SADC leaders’ frustration
with the people of Zimbabwe, specially the MDC party is understandable for all
those who have cared to follow the Zimbabwe crisis. The MDC had the golden
opportunity to implement the democratic reforms during the GNU and SADC leaders
did their best to remind Tsvangirai and company of this but were ignored. MDC
failed to get even one reform implemented in five years of the GNU.
Since the rigged 2013
elections MDC-T has failed to take advantage of its MPs and Senators to push
for the implementation of meaningful democratic reforms. The party has failed
to articulate reforms are required much less how they should be implemented!
“We don't go out in public
and shout, so that you can be happy and dance in the streets of New York,” came
the Namibian President jab! Of course he has a point!
MDC leaders have wasted one
opportunity after another to dismantle the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship
and replace it with a healthy and functional democratic system of government. The
dismantling is done by proposing and implementing democratic reforms and
parliament is the only forum in which this can be done. MDC has never taken
advantage of it parliamentary majority to implement the reforms during the GNU
and now it is abandoning the parliamentary route altogether in favour of street
protests, nagging SADC leaders to pressure Mugabe to change.
In all these years MDC
leaders have failed to come up with any details of democratic changes the
country needs showing that they have not being paying attention. The ordinary
Zimbabweans themselves too have not been any wiser; if they were then they
would have seen to it that Tsvangirai and company implemented the reforms
during the GNU, for example.
3 comments:
@Busani
Whilst I agree with you that African leaders have a history of rallying and turning a blind eye to the criminal activities of their fellow black Africans; we have to agree that President Hage Geingob has not done so here. He has made it very clear that it is not acceptable for leaders to kill their own people to extend their stay in power. On this he is agreeing with Botswana's President Ian Khama who too broke with tradition and told Mugabe in no uncertain terms that he has failed as a leader and it was time for him to go.
President Geingob went one step further and told the ordinary Zimbabwean a home truth most of us clearly do not want to hear, that we have to fight our own battles. Given that we did nothing to ensure the democratic reforms were implemented during the GNU; I would say he hit the nail on the head! SADC leaders did their best to get the reforms implemented during the GNU, they were rightly disappointed that they did not get help to get this done from MDC or us the ordinary people. If we want the reforms to be implemented then we will have to prove to the world that we are ready by taking the fight ourselves.
@ Mbanje
Let us say for the sake of the discussion that Nomusa came up with a shortlist of leaders whom she consider credible. The important question is how would you, me and the rest of the Zimbabwe population know that the individuals are indeed the competent leaders we have been seeking? As things stand you, me and the rest of the populous will have to assume that Nomusa KNOWS what we want and follow her blindly. This is exactly what has been happening so far and hence the reason we are in this hell-hole.
Mugabe came along in 1980 and the nation was convinced he was Moses and would lead us to the Promised Land. What he did was to lead us into this hell-hole.
In 1999 along came Morgan Richard Tsvangirai and once again the nation was gripped with political fever convinced that he was the nation's suviour. In the 2008 elections the people risked life and limp to vote Tsvangirai and his MDC friends into power and they did get into power. MDC were elected on a ticket to deliver democratic changed and during the GNU they had the golden opportunity to do just that. They failed to implement even one democratic reform in five years of the GNU because they are corrupt and incompetent.
Mugabe bribed Tsvangirai and company with the gravy train trapping including a $ 4 million Highlands Mansion for Tsvangirai and a former white owned farm for Ncube. MDC leaders took the bribe and kicked reforms into the tall grass.
The moral of our tragic tale is crystal clear: the Zimbabwe electorate is naive and gullible and hence the reason the embraced a corrupt and murderous tyrant and for 20 years would not see him for what he is. When they finally woke up to the reality of who Mugabe was they dropped him but only to embrace a corrupt and incompetent village idiot!
The solution is not Nomusa or anyone to tell the people "follow him or her" but for the people to at least have a rough idea where the Promised Land is and how to get there and then chose those who can prove they too know where they are going and how to get there to lead them. And every step of the way it is for the people themselves to check and be satisfied they are still on course.
To prove that the electorate is no longer naive and gullible they must prove that they understand the importance of free, fair and credible elections by articulating what political changes they want to see implemented to end Zimbabwe's culture of rigged and violent elections. It is not rocket science but it requires some thinking.
In other words the Zimbabwe electorate are naive and gullible because they would not think. For anyone capable of thinking for themselves would never mistake a tyrant or a village idiot for a leader nor would they ever ask another fallible mortal to tell them whom they should follow
Only a blind person would want others to lead him/her by the hand but even then they would ask where they are going.
How many times have nations removed one dictator but only to have him replace by another dictator, especially in Africa. There is a real danger of Zimbabweans removing Mugabe but only to replace him with a village idiot, at best!
Post a Comment