Zanu-PF mindgames

Events currently besetting Zanu-PF read like a horror movie script in which film watchers can see clearly how victims in the movie are being mowed one by one by a horrific and mysterious creature while they seem oblivious to what is gorging them.

By now, any truly observant person would, indubitably, have seen the modus operandi of the decades-old party. Zanu-PF seems adept at exhuming the past when it suits them; resuscitating the "convenient" past to destroy its perceived foes both internally and externally. This strategy is palpably clear that anyone should see it at a glance but, alas, like the proverbial horror movie, they don't seem to get it — or do they?

The ruling party is adroit at sharpening and throwing, with fatal consequences, the javelin, namely the murky past, to annihilate its own. Oftentimes, the only trouble with this mind-game is that it leaves Zimbabweans wondering whether there are any real heroes in the country. It leaves people to wonder what else is hidden in the past.

Most people that Zimbabweans were made to believe were heroes have, "conveniently", when it suits the party, been reduced to villains, virtual nobodies in record time. Recent events firmly confirm how the party has the uncanny propensity to stealthily revisit the long and buried foggy past catching its intended targets off-guard.

Surely, how does an incident that happened three decades ago find itself topical news today? Gory details have emerged of how Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa is alleged to have caused enfeebling injuries to rising television star, Godfrey Majonga, ending his career sometime in the 1980s, as he had to be confined to a wheelchair.

Presumably, if this past should be true, it is a mystery, or is it, that no one dared to speak or write about it when it happened yet today, 30 years on, it has become a relevant issue even overtaking current events. The timeworn matter is astoundingly gripping headlines ahead of 2017 issues. Everyone now gets a glimpse of Majonga, even many who would not have known him, being exhibited in a wheelchair.

By the way, this piece does not, in the slightest, seek to hold a brief for the probable victims of Zanu-PF's mindgames, but to bring to the fore the inevitable and logical question, which the nation will seek in view of the much-publicised issue, which pertains to why and wherein this grave matter was concealed from the eyes of the public. Why were people silent about such a concerning matter only to try and give it spine today, three decades on?

Majonga has always been resident in Zimbabwe in the last four decades and so has been the Vice-President. What is the change in circumstances? Is the nation honestly being made to believe that this matter, which took place, purportedly 30 years ago, suddenly has feet of its own? This question is almost embarrassing.

In the field of law, there is something called prescription. This means the allotted time in which a matter can still be validly heard before a court of law. Of course, a crime will always remain a crime, but the concept of prescription fosters the need for matters to be brought before the courts in reasonable time. But isn't it comical or perhaps enigmatic that a matter of this magnitude suddenly comes alive after more than 20 years?

Something larger than what we see could be brewing. The Majonga saga could be a harbinger of sinister things to come. But should this surprise? Yes, to the untrained eye, but not to those who can read patterns. Zanu-PF will always bring the muddy past to the fore whether true or concocted if they have a bone to chew with you.

Whoever thought Joice Mujuru, the once revered and decorated Vice-President, could be hounded out of the party with such ruthlessness as happened in 2014. All of a sudden, allegations of corruption came raining on the former Vice-President like a tonne of bricks. The heroic deeds of the woman we all grew up hearing had felled a helicopter were disparaged and her role in the liberation struggle blighted.

The nation soon learnt that the Mujurus were far from being the heroes that we thought they were. Solomon Mujuru was bashed even in death by the party he served. The same people, who sang his praises and made us all believe he was a selfless cadre, turned the tables on him. He became a villain.

The same story could be found with the late Josiah Tongogara who, for many years, we were told was a hero. In a special supplement, some unsavoury things bordering on tribalism and callousness were said about him
by the very people who authored his gallant feats. Zimbabwean history drips with these mind-games and perhaps those who coined the statement "politics is a dirty game" had grasped this.

Again, I will restate, these occurrences leave the nation to wonder whether it has any true heroes. Like the late political scientist, Masipula Sithole, would have said, obviously plucking from the Bible: "Let those who have an ear hear."