Middleton Nyoni turning in his grave: His office of excellence is reduced to despicable genital-mother insults and death treats

We are watching on the sidelines seeing the gross mismanagement of Bulawayo residents' rates payments squandered to the extent that Bulawayo City council cannot resuscitate the water works for weeks and weeks! Nobody really knows when some areas will ever get water at all. (We don't even ask how clean the water is in the first place) There is something seriously brewing in BCC that we do not know and will never comprehend it all.

The smells not only of gross incompetence but also high levels of corruption are now easy to recognise because apparently the entire councillors appear to be corrupt. Instead of asking pertinent questions: this BCC has become wholly corrupt we jump into tribal games we love very much: Mashona against Mathebele conflict. There is nothing that excites the Zimbabwean more than to talk about tribalism in Zimbabwe. That intertribal play is very potent; it only needs to be ignited and then tribalism unrolls its nakedness, no rational whatsoever is applied to the actual unfolding of the case: what should be seen as the root cause of the conflict.

Mr. Middleton Nyoni served this City of Queens and Kings for a long time. He served as Town Clerk with honesty, dignity and excellence. Apparently he died of food poisoning that can be traced from his work-place. He lived well above all confines of tribal affiliations and race. The cause of his passing on will always remain a rumour; the truth is the Town Clerk Nyoni was a no-nonsense servant of the residents of this great city: Bulawayo. He was widely known home and abroad and as long as he worked at the City Hall, life made sense in Bulawayo. Relatively good services were delivered to the residents despite the challenges emanating from collapsing central government.

The city of Bulawayo has had a long trek record of good service delivery since 1980 independence. It is a pity that the good work that Mr. Middleton Nyoni put or invested has been destroyed by the new generation of politicians who do not know the word service but self-enrichment and big German posh cars to move around with them to outshine the Bulawayo residents who are as poor as church mice. Inherently, we African people love to display this rich-poor scenario to feed our ego and fell good about ourselves.

If this video that is circulating in the WhatsApp-chat is to go by, then we saw with our own eyes how Mr. Dube used insults: using mother's genitals to inflict insults on Karambani.  Does the office of the Town Clerk deserve that language that is below the pale to justify his refusal to leave office? Why is using the mother's genitals easy to effect deep pain more than ubo'lo luka Baba, male genitals? Dube openly disregarded the office of the Town Clerk by showing all signs of tantrums. It was Dube's undoing to even threaten Karambani telling him he was going to kill him? Sure in this day and age, to ever threaten someone to kill him because he is served with suspension letter is just out of the realms of good senses. There is something fundamentally wrong with our ethic and the sanctity of life in Zimbabwe.

Now, if I am of Ndebele origin I am supposed to support Mr. Dube irrevocably without question then is factually means I have a problem. This case between Karambani and Dube invite many questions before one can plunge into judgement of siding with one corner that is Ndebele with the other that is not Ndebele but Shona. Is that political correctness without ever knowing the actual beef of the whole story to partially side with Dube the Ndebele man?

It is my own humble opinion; Mr. Karambani could not have issued a letter of suspension to Mr. Dube without the Lord Mayor Mguni knowing it. In the scheme of things, the Lord Mayor knows a lot about the case, but curiously he throws Karambani under the bus and telling all and sundry he does not know what is happening at the City Hall; reinstates the Town Clack. My second question is why the Mayor absent in such a crucial time in his office: goes for study leave leaving burning issues at the Bulawayo City Hall that needed his urgent attention before he can even envisage a holiday.

Whatever Dube may have done to deserve suspension, his corruption or his incompetence and abuse of office did not happen in those three weeks the mayor was on study leave. Those several accusations may have accumulated and culminated over a long period of time; he is issued with a letter of suspension only when the mayor is absent from office! The mayor would like to make us understand that he has no knowledge of what is happening at the City Hall because he is on leave: to me that smacks of dishonesty. In retrospect, the Lord Mayor is privy of everything unfolding at the Bulawayo City Hall.

As someone born in the City of Queens and Kings Bulawayo, I feel very much attached to what is unfolding at the City Hall and of course I allow myself to comment on it. However it is inconceivable to think on binary: this stereotyping term of Shona versus Ndebele as the reason of this conflict at this day and age. The simple reason why we should not fall in this trap is that 1) it is too simplistic to determine issues of right and wrong on tribal lines. 2) How do residents of Bulawayo turn around and complain about Shona councillors, they voted for those people to represent them in council services. 3) If indeed Mr. Dube is Zanu PF as they put it on social media, how do you support a Zanu PF- Dube because he is Ndebele against Karambani who is Shona and MDC?I fail to understand this simple equation.

This conflict in BCC will inform and teach us a lot about values and principles as ethics we should uphold.
We are now coming to our senses in realizing that MDC cannot even run councils in the entire country. Town residents are wary about the services they are getting from the MDC party that predominantly run Town councils almost everywhere in the country's cities. In a nutshell, MDC is failing the residents by giving them sub-standard services. In councils we should vote for people who can deliver and not the tribal aspect of the candidate.

Evidently Dube is challenged by his job and this is evident by the way he answers Karambani in that video we saw. That video was embarrassing in the sense that Dube failed to civil and was not to say one sentence that was rational by all standards. Those mother-genital insults, throwing of papers of suspension at Karambani, threatening to kill him, telling him to "get out" of his office; the good question is, if Mr. Dube has children and will get hold of that video, seeing their father cursing using despicable, unprintable words sitting in the office of the Town Clerk, how are they going to come to terms with this below-the-belt language-use coming from their own parent?

I may be a small cog in the scheme of things; I refuse to be drawn into a conflict that is nowhere a tribal conflict - but this whole issue is all about poor service delivery, corruption by all involved the mayor included: Ndebeles and Shonas in the BCC council jobs. It has been turned into a tribal one. These councillors are selling the tribal as the reason of their misunderstanding. This issue has turned wholly tribal because the residents will relate to tribalism better than the rational. It is very comfortable to speak about tribalism in a country: a country that is sitting on a time-bomb because of tribalism.

There are indeed several issues in Mathebeleland that are highly tribal especially the marginalization and lack of development in the region. Dabengwa died without seeing his Mathebeleland Water Project realized. The Shona teachers that teach children at primary schools serve disastrous educational development to the region. The government is dragging its feet in solving the Gugurahundi atrocities of the 1980s. It is these unresolved issues that can easily twist around other related ones to be cited as tribal because it comforts both the Shonas and Ndebeles inwardly to cite any immerging conflict as tribal.

 Worst case scenario in this Dube-Karambani conflict is that the Minister who is Zanu PF will, ironically, come and solve this problem for them. Minister July Moyo is now on his way to Bulawayo to put MDC-House-Councillors in order. The Zanu PF cannot solve issues of tribal nature competently because Zanu PF is premised on tribal divisions to sustain itself. This BCC issue is playing in the gallery of Zanu PF, scenarios that Zanu PF loves most. Zanu PF thrives better on inner tribal conflicts. This has been given to them on their plate to solve it; another opportunity for Zanu PF to grandstand!