So what will Zimbabweans do when they're still poor by 2030?

Faith is good, but blind faith is dangerous.

The countdown to 2030 has begun in earnest, and for the average Zimbabwean, it feels less like a march toward prosperity and more like a high-speed chase toward a brick wall.

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We are told that in just four short years, this nation will have transformed into an upper middle-income society.

We are promised a land of milk and honey where the struggles of today will be nothing more than a fading memory.

Yet, as the ruling elite moves with suspicious haste to mutilate our supreme law through the Constitutional Amendment (No. 3) Bill, one must ask a fundamental and terrifying question.

What will Zimbabweans do when the year 2030 finally arrives and they find themselves just as poor, just as hungry, and just as desperate as they are today?

This proposed amendment is a direct assault on the democratic fabric of our nation.

It seeks to unconstitutionally extend the term of President Emmerson Mnangagwa without the bother of a national referendum, which the Constitution explicitly mandates for such changes.

The audacity of this move is breathtaking.

It signals a leadership that is no longer content with merely governing but is now obsessed with absolute and indefinite control.

We see the state-controlled media parading a seemingly endless stream of supporters who supposedly back these amendments with all their hearts.

However, we in Zimbabwe have lived this story before.

We know that these crowds are often stage-managed spectacles.

Many of these people appear at rallies not out of genuine political conviction but in the desperate hope of receiving a food hamper, a party t-shirt to replace their tattered rags, or perhaps a vending stall to eke out a meager living.

The tragedy of our current state is that poverty has been weaponized.

It has become a tool of political control.

When people are stripped of their dignity and forced into a state of permanent desperation, they are easily manipulated into singing and dancing for their oppressors.

Even those in power are not blind to this reality.

They know that a significant portion of the support they see in public is nothing more than a performance fueled by fear of reprisal or the hunger for trinkets.

The regime is notoriously intolerant of dissent, and in such an environment, silence or feigned loyalty is a survival strategy.

This is precisely why they are terrified of a secret ballot or a national referendum.

They know that if given a genuine, fearless choice, the same people currently cheering them on would readily vote to reject a system that has sucked the country dry through unashamed corruption and the looting of national resources.

It would be a mistake, however, to ignore the small segment of ordinary Zimbabweans who genuinely believe the propaganda.

These are the citizens who, despite four and a half decades of neglect, still cling to the hope that their lives will somehow improve.

They see the occasional drilling of a solar-powered borehole, the construction of a single classroom block, or the repair of a colonial-era bridge swept away by floods, and they mistake these minor acts of maintenance for revolutionary development.

For a person who has known only homelessness or lack, even the smallest crumb feels like a feast.

Their hope is tragic because it is placed in the hands of the very people who plunged them into this abyss.

They have been conditioned to see their arsonists as their firefighters.

But let us look at the cold, hard facts that no amount of state media spin can erase.

The so-called Second Republic has been at the helm for nine years now.

If miracles were going to happen, we would have seen the signs by now.

Instead, the trajectory has been one of consistent decline for the ordinary citizen.

According to World Bank data, the situation is worsening.

In 2017, extreme poverty - defined as those living on less than $2.15 a day - stood at 34.2 percent.

By 2025, that figure did not decrease as promised but instead skyrocketed to 42 percent.

Those living in general poverty on less than $3.65 a day rose from 61.6 percent to 64.5 percent.

If we use the upper middle-income poverty threshold of $6.85 per day, a staggering 85 percent of our population now falls into that category, up from 83 percent when this administration took over.

How much more evidence does a functional brain require?

These are not just numbers on a page but represent millions of Zimbabwean lives spent in misery.

If we have become poorer over the last nine years of this administration, what logical basis exists to believe that the next four years will bring a sudden, magical reversal?

Common sense dictates that if we continue on this path, we will be even worse off in 2030 than we are today.

The math simply does not support the dream.

We are often told that Zimbabwe boasts the fastest-growing economy in the region, and on paper, some sectors have indeed seen a revival.

But this is the great Zimbabwean paradox.

The economy may grow, but the people only wither.

The wealth never trickles down because the pipes are blocked by systemic greed.

Our standing on the Corruption Perception Index has remained a source of national embarrassment.

For nine years, we have hovered around a pathetic score of 22 out of 100, marking Zimbabwe as one of the most corrupt nations on the planet.

This explains exactly where the growth is going.

It is ending up in the pockets of a handful of elites and their well-connected cronies.

We have become a kleptocracy, a country governed by those who view the national treasury as a private bank account.

It is telling that in a nation of millions, only a tiny group of individuals - the so-called mbinga or Zvigananda - possess unimaginable wealth while the rest of the population languishes.

These few names are repeatedly mentioned whenever millions of dollars are splashed on luxury cars for influencers or donated to stage-managed causes.

This is not philanthropy.

It is the redistribution of stolen wealth used to buy temporary loyalty.

It is a cynical cycle where the people are robbed of their resources and then expected to worship the thieves when they return a tiny fraction of that loot in the form of a handout.

The vision of 2030 is being used as a carrot on a stick to justify the destruction of our constitutional safeguards.

Those in power want more time, but more time for what?

If nine years produced more poverty and more corruption, another two or four years will only entrench the suffering.

We must stop being a nation of beggars who think we need a leader to stay in power longer so we can receive more crumbs.

A proud nation of warriors has been reduced to a mass of people waiting for “empowerment funds” that never arrive for the common man.

Why do we not instead aspire for a functional nation?

We should demand a country where we can stand proud, where our hard work is rewarded with a living wage, and where we can afford the basics and even the comforts of life without having to sing for our supper.

The truth is uncomfortable but necessary.

By 2030, millions of Zimbabweans will still be begging at the tables of the ruling elite if we continue to allow the law to be bent to suit the whims of powerful men.

I feel a profound pity for those who refuse to see this reality, blinded by either fear or a desperate, misplaced faith.

When the year 2030 arrives and the banners are taken down, the reality will remain.

The boreholes will break, the handouts will run dry, and the poverty will still be there, deeper and more entrenched than ever.

So I ask again, what will you do then?

Will you wait for 2040?

Or will you realize today that the path to true prosperity does not lie in extending the terms of those who failed us, but in upholding the law and demanding accountability?

© Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. To directly receive his articles please join his WhatsApp Channel on: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaqprWCIyPtRnKpkHe08