Has Chiyangwa lost his mind?

While yours truly was growing up in the Eastern Highlands, the name Phillip Chiyangwa was synonymous with a successful native businessman. Every young person was envious of him though they were not privy o the source of his wealth.

However, the same name no longer summons the same today. Perhaps Chiyangwa is now more associated with buffoonery than business acumen. Today's generation knows Chiyangwa as a chap who frequently posts selfies on social media. He has been in the social media doing all sorts of ridiculous things, ranging from dancing to uttering gobbledygook. He has been flaunting the vestiges of his wealth and sneering at the underprivileged members of society. He does this at a time when others at the same economic echelon are engaged in social responsibility to help the poor.

A colleague said it was chiefly that smugness which contributed to his rejection in Chinhoyi, Mashonaland West where he was once a Chairman and legislator. He is reported to have been in the tendency of going off at a tangent at rallies and start flying his own kite. He would talk about his everything. He is infamous for telling poor supporters in his erstwhile Chinhoyi Constituency that the value of his shoes was equivalent to that of a brand new Mazda 323 vehicle. But people needed development and food on the table not his brags, thus, they ditched him with his riches.

With his selfies, nobody was bothered much, for it was expected that he would remain a harmless clown. Everybody thought he would end with posting his senseless selfies while dancing shamelessly as one of the vulgar fellows. Psychologists would explain that Chiyangwa missed a certain stage in his developmental process which he is now compensating. He was quoted in the Daily news issue of 3 December saying "I am a youngman who has made it on my own." You see, at 59 he still thinks he is a youngman. That explains his behaviour.

The comments, mostly from his hero worshippers, that have accompanied his social media postings have spurred him to enter deeper ends where he risks drowning. The shona elders say ukasekerera benzi rechigeza rinodya sipo kana kunwa muto vamwe vachida kuseva (If you laugh when a fool is doing silly things, he will take it as approval and do sillier things)

Chiyangwa's buffoonery has now become an issue of security interest and he needs to be reigned in soonest. He was in the media, this time around savaging the introduction of bond notes and other government policies. He accused government of forcing the so-called smart people into exile, one of them being Evan Mawarire. He actually urged people like Mawarire to be courageous and not flee the country after challenging the ruling authority.

Of course, Chiyangwa has a democratic right to criticise government policies but it becomes a problem when that criticism borders on incitement to rebellion against the government. This is exactly what Chiyangwa wittingly or unwittingly did when he ferociously mauled the introduction of bond notes. This is exactly what it means when Chiyangwa falsely accuses government of forcing people into exile. It is scary more so coming from a senior ruling party member.

"Surely how can you print a paper and sign it and tell me it is money? No no no, we need to challenge some of these things," said Chiyangwa. He gives a wrong picture surrounding the introduction of bond notes. Obviously that misinformation is meant to incite people to resist the bond notes and perpetrate the cash shortage. As a Central Committee member of the ruling Zanu-PF party, Chiyangwa must be in the know that the current cash crisis weighs down on his party. The opposition parties are attributing the crisis to the so-called Zanu-PF's mismanagement and Chiyangwa seems to be endorsing that propaganda.

Could this be a deliberate ploy to destroy Zanu-PF from within? Chiyangwa himself said: "I joined them in Zanu-PF so that I criticise them while Iam among them." A whole central committee member telling Zanu-PF straight in the face, that he joined them so that he could criticise them from within. That sounds more of destroying from within than criticising from within. This is the problem that comes with roping in people into the revolutionary party because of their financial status. These people are not well grounded in the ideology and ethos of the party. They just want to use Zanu-PF as a ladder for self-aggrandisement. Chiyangwa do not have a solid background in Zanu-PF or in politics in general save for his stint in the colonial British South Africa Police (BSAP) African reserve.

The problem with people like Chiyangwa is that their sources of wealth are not traceable. The way he and his sidekick Chamu Chiwanza sweat to resist bond notes stinks and smacks of a gang that has been thriving on the crisis. There are people who have been thriving on externalising money, so expecting them to support the introduction of bond notes and other austerity measures against externalisation would be expecting too much. Chiwanza, the Affirmative Action Group president, who on many occasions was with Chiyangwa on selfies said: "In our view, we believe that the issue of bond notes is a sign of failure."

By criticising Zanu-PF as a failure, it is a case of a kettle calling a pot black. Chiyangwa is the greatest failure. Most of the companies he acquired through means that only God knows, have collapsed. His loss-making engineering concern, Zeco Holdings was recently suspended from trading on the local bourse for three months for failing to pay listing fees and failure to hold meetings with shareholders. If he cannot manage a single company, he is not, therefore, qualified to comment on the one he alleges to have failed to manage the economy of the whole nation. He cannot blame anyone when he is failing to run ZIFA.