Mnangagwa explains mantra

The Nyika Inovakwa neVene Vayo (a country is built by its own people) mantra is an ideology of self-determination and national responsibility and stresses the centrality of Zimbabwean people in the country's development agenda, President Mnangagwa has said.

He said the slogan, which has been trending in championing Government programmes, was designed to complement the "Zimbabwe is Open for Business" mantra and does not sideline the promotion of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

In an opinion article exclusive to The Sunday Mail this week, President Mnangagwa said the "Nyika Inovakwa neVene Vayo" ideology can be traced back to the 19th Century through to the liberation war when issues such as food security, freedom, and defence were championed by Zimbabweans.

"Often a question is raised: How does Nyika Inovakwa neVene Vayo cohere with our Zimbabwe is Open for Business mantra? Is it not discriminatory, exclusionary, anti-FDI even?" he said.

"The simple answer is that the philosophy and ideology of Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo is not exclusionary. Nor does it eschew foreign direct investment and partnerships.

"All it does is to set parameters for both, all the time stressing the centrality of Zimbabweans and Zimbabwean plans and priorities in all such arrangements." President Mnangagwa said his Government's vision of sourcing and attracting FDI and partnerships was based on augmenting the country's own capacities as an economy, people and nation.

"Our vision in sourcing and attracting foreign investments is mutual gain and benefit," he said.

"It is not founded on our displacement or marginalisation, whether as indigenes, communities or as a people who own finite resources. Indeed, these are key lessons from our struggle for national Independence."

President Mnangagwa said while the country received help from foreign countries during the liberation struggle, Zimbabweans themselves were at the forefront of freeing the country from the colonialists.

"We secured foreign arms to enhance our capacity to fight colonialism and to dislodge the settler system. We bore those arms, fought the enemy ourselves. We made sacrifices for our own liberation.

"Equally, we prosecuted that struggle on the basis of our thinking, philosophy, ideology and history.

"The result and outcome were a free and independent Zimbabwe, freed from foreign values and ideologies, and thus ready and able to chart its own course independently.

"So, Nyika Inovakwa neVene Vayo is a philosophy and ideology of self-determination and of national responsibility; indeed, it is an affirmation of our national sovereignty and independence."

President Mnangagwa said Nyika Inovakwa neVene Vayo has given the country a debt-free model of development.

"How then do we fulfill our responsibility, mission and duty in order to carry out the burden of developing our Zimbabwe?" he said.

"Fundamentally and unfailingly by turning to its endowments and resources, whether animate or inanimate, above or beneath the ground we tread, whether known or unknown.

"As Kwame Nkrumah emphasised, we are located in nature, which is our God-given territory of Zimbabwe. We have the land and all which lies under it, grows and crawls above it.

"We have our people, black, white-yellow, brown; short, tall, medium; hailing from this or that corner, tribe or region; of this or that faith, religion, belief or creed; speaking this or that language or dialect."