Mugabe's long life a gift to Zimbabwe- senator Marava

Zanu PF senator Misheck Marava has said President Robert Mugabe's long life was a blessing to Zimbabwe as he is expected to continue guiding the nation towards success.

Speaking in parliament Marava said there is no country without elders.

"I was quite happy when I read one time that there is an Indian person who is 145 years old, who is still walking today. It is a gift that comes from the Lord. We thank the Lord for the gift of life. That gift of life was also granted to our President," he said. "We should be grateful for the years that he has achieved, whole heartedly; he is now in a group of the elite old men of this world. When we are debating here, we should tell the truth that the President is 92 years and as Zimbabweans we are grateful."

He said Mugabe is not a South African or Canadian citizen.

"He is a gift to Zimbabwe. If you have the majority of elders living to 130 years, it does help us that will have advice us of a several pools of advisors and that way, we will not lose our history," he said. "An advisor or consultant in other countries is paid a lot of money and they are well respected. We have our advisor, our President who is now 92 years old, we thank him. As he grows older, he has had several experiences, both good and bad. One of the good things that he did was to lead the liberation war struggle up until we attained our independence as he waged the struggle from Mozambique."

"We voted for him and I even learnt to draw the picture of President Mugabe and we went to celebrate as I was holding a drawn picture of the President – that was the time, bygones will stay bygones. This is why the whites say we should call a spade a spade. We should do that, our President is still alive; he could do a lot of good things because he is still alive. If we fail to tell him the truth, then we will be failing in doing our duty. We should not be bootlicking, those are into bootlicking should know that it does not take our country any further; it does not help the development of this country," he added.

He said President Mugabe was the second one to sign the Kampala Declaration on the issue of statelessness, other countries domesticated that Kampala Declaration to assist their citizens but regrettably domestication of that document has not been done in Zimbabwe.

"We have not yet started using it, but it is an important aspect which could assist our children that are in this country and those who are in the Diaspora as asylum seekers," he said. "Other countries are benefiting from a document that our President is one of the first few signatories, yet we are not beneficiaries. When his Chairman tenure of African Union ended, he gladly passed on the baton, as Zimbabweans we did not even make an effort that our President should be given another term. Once a turn has come, one attains that position of Chairmanship regardless of our qualities, we led for that period and we did it. Our President did not embarrass us except for the few occasions here and there."

He said they no longer have any income per capita, the strength of the US dollar has gone down, that can only be maintained by a leader of this country.

"Our President has no power over it because the American dollar is not our currency but it has helped us to stabilize our economy, we thank the Americans for their dollar. Where would we have been without the American dollar?" he said.

"I want to thank our President, he is the one who accepted to have the Government of National Unity, at the time of dollar for two, all of us were there. We thank him for having led us during that time, if we were closer to the GNU, we should have been better. If it was possible and I believe it is possible, it is not difficult that when we come into the Senate, we take the oath of loyalty to Zimbabwe."

He said the Constitution that we now have, which was signed by the President, we should fight tooth and nail that it should come into full operation for the benefit of all our children.  

"By so doing, we will have created a good image as other countries are watching to see if Zimbabwe will do what it has set itself to do that came out from its people. We will overcome, let us keep on walking," he said.