Zimbabwe's many challenges and problems are microcosm of our failure to reason

• Man is a creature of reason; all humans are born with inert potential to think and reason.
• Some people have lost the ability to reason out of drunken stupor, laziness or some such reasons.

In 1984 I came across a horrific road accident just outside Kadoma on my way to Harare. A Peugeot 406 station wagon, a Pirate Taxi, had failed to negotiate a bend, and rolled down the embankment. It had flipped on to its side, on its roof, flipped on to the other side and then landed back on its wheels.

There was a cloud of dust and ash (from a recent grass fire) in the still air when I got there, five minutes or so after the accident. I pulled over, to help.

The car ploughed a deep scar in the dry earth, travelling a good fifty metres or so off the road. It must have been flying!

There was the smell of petrol in the air and the pressing issue was get everyone out of the wreck and a safe distance away. More help soon arrived as a few more cars stopped to help. Among the helper was a nurse who had travelled from Harare to Norton in the vehicle on route to Gweru. She had insisted on getting off in Norton when her pleas with the driver to slow down had fallen on deaf ears. The driver's assistant was drunk, and he had whistled cheerfully as the vehicle raced along.

When they stopped in Norton and she saw the drive and his assistant drink, she decided there and then to get out. She had paid the full fare to Gweru and the two would not refund her for the balance.

Five or so minutes after pulling out, what everyone had assumed was the last person out of the wrecked car, everyone was surprised to hear the car creak open. Out crawled this ghostly figure covered in dust and black ash. The twilight of the recently set sun, enhanced his ghostly appearance.

The ghost muttered something about needing a recess. He walked a few metres away from the car and had a piss.
"Ngai gebe! Hindava kumira pasina Bottle Store!" (Let's go! Why did you stop where there is no Bottle Store!) He first thing he had noticed there was there was no Bottle Store, for him to buy more beer!

Before he got back in the car, he finally realised there was no one in the car and the sorry state of the car. "What happened?"

"Dzasukwa!" commented the nurse, her voice heavy anger.

"Dzasukwa" was drunk driver's assistant who had egged the speeding with his whistling.  The name Dzasukwa was in reference to one who drinks to excess, who will not leave a drinking party until all the beer pots are empty and washed. He and the driver were drinking buds.

It seems Dzasukwa had slept through the racket of the accident. In the scramble to get out, he had been pushed on the floor of the back seats. The accident was just a nightmare only to wake up to answer the call of nature!

Three people died in the accident, the driver and two passengers including a small boy. All five of the remaining travellers, including Dzasukwa, had broken limbs and/or ribs including. The mother of the small boy was broken heartened.

"The worst thing about this tragic human suffering and loss of life," remarked the nurse "is that it could have been easily avoided if only common sense had prevailed!"  

The accident was a microcosm of the tragedy that has fallen on Zimbabwe these last 42 years. Common sense dictated that alcohol and speeding were a recipe for disaster. And yet the passengers in the car had not raised their objections on the drinking and speeding even when the nurse had seized the initiative.

Zimbabwe is in a serious economic mess and political paralysis after 42 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and lawlessness that has left the country in economic ruins and a failed pariah state. The nation has been stuck with the Zanu PF dictatorship all these years because the regime rigged the elections.

One does not need a degree in political science to know one can never hold free, fair and credible elections without something as basic as a verified voters' roll, when voters are frog marched to vote for a particular party, etc. And that the failure to hold those in positions of power and authority will only encourage them to abuse their power with the disastrous consequences of corruption and tyrannical rule.

It took 20 years, from 1980 to the late 1990s, for most Zimbabweans to finally accept that Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies were corrupt and murderous thugs. The people also realised that the only peaceful way to end the Zanu dictatorship was by implementing the democratic reforms designed to stop the regime rigging the elections.

For the last 22 years they have risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders to implement the reforms.

There has been no political change, Zanu PF has remained in power because MDC has failed to implement even one token reform in 22 years, 5 of which in the GNU. Again, it beggars belief that the people have yet to realise that MDC have given up on reforms and free elections and have settled for a few gravy train seats as a reward from Zanu PF for participating in flawed elections to give the regime legitimacy.    

When Zimbabwe gained her independence in 1980, we, the people of Zimbabwe, should have become masters of our own destiny but, by failing to hold those in positions of power and authority to account, have allowed drunkards and tyrants to drag us all into this hell-on-earth. The root cause of tragic human suffering and loss of many lives in Zimbabwe today is a result of rigged elections and bad governance; man-made problems we can easily solve, if only we allowed reason and common sense to prevailed!