Latest News Editor's Choice


Opinion / Columnist

So Mnangagwa not the one ruling Zimbabwe!

12 Jun 2023 at 11:32hrs | Views
As the crucial 23rd August 2023 inch closer, the ridiculousness and absurdity keeps getting weirder.

This is especially so within the ruling ZANU PF camp - as they, as per norm, attempt to hoodwink the nation - by pinning all their regime's monumental failures on the opposition CCC (Citizens Coalition for Change).

It was so outrageous listening to various ZANU PF top officials (who included Politburo member Tendai Chirau), while addressing a rally over the weekend - pile the blame for the freefalling local currency, and the subsequent skyrocketing of prices - squarely on opposition leader Nelson Chamisa.

Amidst all the hysterical cheering and ululating by their gullible party faithful - I could not help wondering whether these people did not fully grasp what they were actually insinuating.

Surely, by declaring that Chamisa can somehow wake up one morning and simply issue instructions for the local currency to spectacularly fall, and businesses to increase prices - are they not asserting that the opposition leader is actually the one in power in Zimbabwe?

This is the same with the 'Chamisa invited sanctions on the country'!

Wow, are these people seriously claiming that the opposition leader had the power to instruct the US President and Congress to enact ZIDERA - or, at least, plead with them - and they listened?

Are they genuinely saying Chamisa has achieved what other world leaders - as Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelonskyy, or fellow Western powers - have found extremely difficult in convincing the US on certain foreign policies issues?

In fact, are they not telling the entire country and world that Chamisa wields indescribable powers - not only in Zimbabwe, but globally?

Are they also not telling everyone that their own leader, President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, is merely ceremonial and not really in charge of the country?

What else are we to conclude, when the one who daily boasts of 'tichingotonga' has absolutely no control over the country he is supposedly 'ruling'?

How can the ruling party itself make such outrageous, and quite frankly mischievous, pronouncements to the effect that an opposition leader is the one who actually holds the reins in Zimbabwe?

If the president and head of state has lost control of the economy to someone in the opposition - what, then, does it say about his ability to lead?

If Chamisa can simply declare that the local currency has to fall, in dramatic fashion - whilst simultaneously, prices of basic commodities flying through the roof - then does that not portray him as the one who really has the authority to run things in Zimbabwe?

What manner of a person can convince large corporates to agree to even destroy their own businesses - with the real danger of running into huge losses - due to high prices that push away customers?

Does this not paint a picture of a person - who can, once elected into power, easily instruct markets and the broader economy, to do practically anything - and they will all obey without question?

As a matter of fact, is ZANU PF not actually subtly and inadvertently campaigning for Chamisa and his CCC?

With a nation that has endured unspeakable pain and suffering for the past two decades - due to unimaginable poverty authored of the ZANU PF regime, which appears either unwilling or incapable of reining in a rabid economy - would it not come as good news that there is a leader who has enough clout and power to finally take full charge?

Zimbabweans are eager and desperate for someone who can successfully manage the economy - something that the Mnangagwa administration has clearly failed to accomplish.

Even the president has unwittingly admitted this fact - most recently during his rally in Masvingo - where he repeated, for the umpteenth time, accusations against both the opposition and Western countries for ostensibly 'sabotaging the economy'.

Surely, what type of a leadership can always be outwitted and outsmarted by their supposed 'enemies' for an entirety of their tenure in office - a whole four decades?

Since the advent of independence in 1980 - we have been told of former Rhodesians, dissidents and apartheid South Africa, and now white farmers, the West, and opposition - as sabotaging Zimbabwe's economy.

As such, if the opposition and their 'regime change' allies can so easily do what a sitting head of state is failing to achieve - who has the real power in Zimbabwe?

The ever-suffering citizenry want someone who has the power to finally take charge!

We are sick and tired of those who can only offer excuses and more excuses - whilst faulting others - in the absence of real tangible solutions, which meaningfully improve the ordinary citizenry's standards of living.

In Shona there is a saying, 'matakadya kare haanyaradzi mwana' - literally meaning, 'telling a child of the food he ate a long time ago will not make him stop crying from hunger'.

In other words, as it pertains to the current situation in Zimbabwe - making endless excuses and blaming others for our poverty will never make us feel better.

We are hungry and suffering, to such an unendurable extent, that constantly telling us of 'regime change agents' will never put food on our tables, or send our children school, or access desperately-needed medical care.

Zimbabweans now need someone who actually possesses the power to change their dire plight.

We want a leader who is listened to by the economy and markets!

We need a leader who can also be heard  and taken seriously by investors and the international community.

That should be a individual whose policies and declarations resonant on the ground, thereby yielding the desired results.

It is undeniable that Mnangagwa is not that person - a fact that both him and his own ZANU PF party have repeatedly admitted and confessed to, albeit unknowingly.

I for one - as with millions of other Zimbabweans - are thoroughly fed up with all the excuses, and desperately in need of a better Zimbabwe.

Those who want to eat excuses for the next twenty, thirty, forty or fifty years, can keep voting for ZANU PF.

Nonetheless, the rest of us do not eat excuses and blame-games.

© Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: http://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/


Source - Tendai Ruben Mbofana
All articles and letters published on Bulawayo24 have been independently written by members of Bulawayo24's community. The views of users published on Bulawayo24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Bulawayo24. Bulawayo24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.