Kenya's rejected BBI find its way to Zimbabwe

WHILE it is not uncommon for politicians to borrow ideas from jurisdictions afar, it is surprising that one can import rejected and failed ideas, plagiarise them and serve them as a panacea for a problem they have failed to solve where the ideas originate.

It sounds foolish, isn't it? This is exactly what Professor Jonathan Moyo is trying to do with his Breaking Barriers Initiative (BBI) which has found expression in the infamous Constitution Amendment Bill 3 in Zimbabwe.

Just like the Moyo Breaking Barriers Initiative (BBI), the Kenyan BBI, the Building Bridges Initiative, was created, purportedly to "address the recurring cycles of violence surrounding Kenyan elections" – quite a plausible excuse to musk nefarious political shenanigans.

The Uhuru Kenyatta BBI in Kenya, just like the Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa and Moyo-led BBI in Zimbabwe, was challenged in court and declared unconstitutional because it was spearheaded by the executive rather than by a public-led process. It was discovered to be a self-preservation gimmick rather than a national project meant for common good.

Interestingly, through the BBI in Kenya, the then president, Uhuru Kenyatta, sought to block his VP, William Ruto, from succeeding him, just the same way President Mnangagwa seeks to change the constitution in a bid to block Vice President Constantino Chiwenga from succeeding him. The similarities are very striking, too glaring to ignore.

It is also interesting to note that where the BBI in Kenya was characterised as an executive initiative, born out of the President's desire to change the constitutional order to fix his VP, the Zimbabwe version of the BBI, now encapsulated as the Constitutional Amendment Bill 3 (CAB3), is a foreign idea, plagiarised by Moyo from Kenya then foisted on Zimbabwe by a member of the executive, Justice Minister, Ziyambi Ziyambi.

It is not surprising why Moyo is pushing for these constitutional amendments even though he knows that such moves have been declared unconstitutional in Kenya where he stays. It is for money that he is doing what he is doing.

Professor Moyo and his Shikamo sidekick, Glen Mpani, have been working in Africa, not as patriots or Pan Africanists, but as mercenaries available to push ideas and plans of anyone who could pay them, even dictators who sought to remain in power by hook or crook.

By way of example, Shikamo tried to rig elections for Malawi's former president, Lazarus Chakwera by proposing to manipulate the voters' roll, transferring and expunging voters from the roll in areas where the now incumbent, President Peter Mutharika was strong.

To his credit, President Chakwera's Chief of Staff, Prince Kapondamgaga, rejected the proposal outrightly and Mpani wrote a scathing letter, after Chakwera's electoral defeat, accusing Kapondamgaga of causing the loss.

The letter, headlined, "Mastery Has Boundaries" accused Kapondamgaga of lacking the sophistication to appreciate that elections were "a game of numbers" that Shikamo could play with and manipulate. Mpani argues that had Kapondamgaga listened to his "advice" to play with the voters' roll immediately after Shikamo had discovered that Chakwera was likely to garner 29 percent of the vote way before the first ballot was cast, Chakwera could have miraculously transformed his 29 percent into a winning 50 percent plus one vote needed to win the elections.

It is no coincidence that the characters who wanted to manipulate the voters' roll in Malawi are now advocating for a constitutional amendment that removes the voters' roll custody from the constitutionally created independent commission, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), and put it in the custody of a government employee, the Registrar of births and Deaths, who himself is a subordinate of the Minister of Home Affairs, Kazembe Kazembe.

The changes proposed by these Shikamo mercenaries are therefore meant to facilitate easy access to the voters' roll so that they can manipulate it for whoever will be paying them whenever elections are held in Zimbabwe. Their call, therefore, to amend section 239 of the Zimbabwe constitution is for their convenience in their mercenary job, it has nothing to do with enhancing transparency in the way the voter register is compiled or kept.

So, these are the characters behind the CAB3 in Zimbabwe, proven election thieves masquerading as patriots who want to ‘end election violence' in our country yet they want to achieve incumbency perpetuity outside the constitution and without elections. What they were paid for is to ensure President Mnangagwa stays in office illegally, that's their brief.

Everything they are doing now is according to a set script. The suppression of opposition voices against CAB3 follows a previously developed strategy that was first implemented in Tanzania.

The template is contained in a strategy document called "Nexus" and involves the creation of "a social media war room" full of trolls whose objective is "neutralisation of negative information dissemination."

In Tanzania, the "social media war room" [note the use of war imagery] was set up for President Samia Suluhu Hassan, before the October 29, 2025, elections to target regime critics who Shikamo identified as "largely foreign-based activists" whom Prof Moyo and Mpani accused of "waging a social media propaganda campaign" aimed at inciting "widespread demonstrations" on election day and having the "ultimate goal of toppling the government."

To counter the activists, Moyo and Mpani proposed setting up an "offshore social media war room" designed to ensure "the continuous flow of accurate information [read regime propaganda] to counter narratives that threaten national security." It is imperative here to note how these mercenaries and fear mongers label criticism as a threat to national security. This is done to instil fear in the client regime as a way of forcing it to give Shikamo a contract. It is also a not sosubtle way of encouraging the regime to unleash violence on its opponents.

When Moyo and Mpani's social media team is unable to effectively counter criticism of the regime, its role shifts to encouraging the authorities to respond with force against those critics.

We are now seeing the same script at play in Zimbabwe where a battery of arrests, arson, intimidation by vigilante groups and coordinated social media trolling against opponents of CAB3 have become the order of the day. The social media war room has already been set-up in Zimbabwe against opponents of CAB3 and the Baba Jukwa character has been resurrected to run a plethora of coordinated X ghost accounts who hunt in packs like wild dogs, attacking any critical voice against CAB3.

The strategy, as contained in the BBI "project document", is predicated on "countering, drowning, crowding out and disrupting negative narratives."

So yes, we are seeing how these mercenaries are at work and how Mathambo's money has been used to set up social media trolls, the police, vigilante groups and even hired mercenaries to assassinate opponents of the unconstitutional amendment of our constitution.

But are we going to buckle under the regime response? No! Tinofa tichienda!

Jealousy Mawarire is a Zimbabwean political commentator.