Job Sikhala must stop behaving like a teaser bull

MDC-Alliance deputy national chairperson Job Sikhala, who has been arraigned before the courts on allegations of subverting a constitutionally-elected Government, is indeed, not new to controversy. It appears the motor-mouth MP has a way of courting controversy, or maybe controversy follows him. In this instalment, the Villager reflects on a January 26, 2012 piece on Sikhala.

Although more than seven years have lapsed, the script reads the same.

The Villager reminisces . . . Back in the village, in the land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve, the soothsayer says Jobless and Witless Sikhala, has a problem of allowing blood to run to his head more than other parts of the body. He, therefore, confuses himself as the blood tips_ his balance.

This villager, who has known Sikhala for many years together with his equally awkward friend, the lanky Tafadzwa Musekiwa, now in yonder London, has never taken both seriously.

They are political chancers who have lost both their moral compass, their political focus and yes, their respect from the electorate and deserve no other place in the political history of this country than the dustbin.

What prompted this instalment dear reader, is that in the village, this villager has learnt never to hug a hyena to make peace. The hyena is filthy and again it will attack you in the process.

Sikhala, who dreams of leading an Egypt-style uprising in the land of Munhumutapa must be told that his ideas are a figment of a poor mind, housed in a body completely incapable of doing anything useful. Such a body houses a brain that thinks it can move a mountain.

A few years ago, this villager who had last seen Sikhala during the college days where he was the master of student armchair politics calling himself Ken Saro Wiwa, was later to meet Sikhala, now a permanent resident of Zimbabwe's political dustbin, at a musical show.

There, the bespectacled Sikhala, cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other, dropped tears at the lyrics of Leonard Karikoga Zhakata, in the process trying to hold back mucus from his nostril by continuously frowning and this villager felt, hey this man is a weakling.

This villager realised Sikhala had sought solace in drink. Today, seeking relevance and seeking rough step to enable him to clutch and climb out of the political dustbin, the same Sikhala, allows blood to run to his head and claims he wants the Egypt-style uprising. That, in our Zimbabwe!

This is political suicide, but this villager would rather Sikhala finds a better way of taking his own life.

How could a weakling, who cries at the twing-twang of the guitar and the lyrics of a common musician lead a "revolution"? Is this not akin to expecting honey from a fly? A man who failed to stand his own in a constituency that he not only spent so much time in and, hence, is well known, but where his political umbilical code was cut.

Surely, the electorate would not tolerate a rabbit MP who spoke of violence and no development — St Mary's bears the scars of long pronounced — and smell more of sewage than fried meat. Propelled into politics at the same time with friend Musekiwa and winning a seat into Parliament based on protest politics, Sikhala misunderstood the popularity of student activism with being on the side of the people.

The noise in Parliament, the shouting in street corners and incoherent statements, not befitting the person of an MP, surely reflect Job Sikhala the clown of Zimbabwean politics. His arrests, probably more than 50 times for crimes that a man seeking public office would not commit, makes Sikhala a publicity monger, lacking the prerequisite maturity, credibility, dignity, integrity and experience.

In the end, his ill-timed stunts make his political party MDC99 — itself a result of the mitotic growth of the MDC family — a circus in which Sikhala himself is the chief clown.

The village soothsayer, the ageless autochthon of knowledge and wisdom, says Sikhala is now a political spent force, who should try gold panning, not politics. Asked why gold panning, the soothsayer contents that when down under the hole digging for the precious stone, one needs to say any rubbish to avoid attending to the energy usurping job, Kurerutsa ndima.

That is where Sikhala belongs. The soothsayer contents that Sikhala's pocket has become so porous that he desperately needs some money to keep him going, hence, his stunt of the Egypt-style revolution is meant to coincide with the European Union's review of illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe.

It is fact not fiction that Job Sikhala, in his unhinged mind, dreams of being the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe one day, and hey, the world should ask us if we have a shortage of people.

At 40 Sikhala's political career has been a trailblazing cocktail of drama, even going as far as finding a suspected goblin at his house, then sneaking into the country people without documentation, suspected kidnapping, brawls, insulting the President and many other things that a leader should simply avoid. In the village, it is known that there is really nothing a mosquito can do to an elephant.

Honestly, what can a mosquito do to an elephant? We are a peace loving nation and have no history of pouring into the streets for regime change and will not tolerate that kind of nonsense that will make us lose life and limb. What is the purpose of elections then? Since 1980, we have successfully held elections, whose results have been contested or uncontested by the opposition and we have largely remained a united country.

Sikhala must stop behaving like a teaser bull. In the village in that famous land of milk honey and dust, while herding cattle a teaser bull, usually the small one just beginning to grow horns, made the most noise, mock-boxing the anthill, spattering the whole area with thin dung and urging the big bulls to fight. Eventually, when the big bulls lock horns, the teaser bull watches from afar, as horns clash.

This is exactly what Sikhala is doing in our politics. Why is it that no one agrees with Sikhala? He has a beef with (former) President Mugabe, he has a beef with (the late) Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, he has a beef with (former) Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara and he has a beef with his neighbours and with everyone who matters.

Sikhala must just grow up. He needs to change his attitude before all and sundry can take him serious. Meanwhile, because of our democratic nature, we have no option, but to let the circus continue. We must never take him seriously. A fly without an adviser will follow a corpse into the grave and get buried with it.