So would you want the president's term extended just because you received a bicycle?

There is nothing worse than a leader who spits in the faces of those he leads.

The sky over Maphisa this past weekend was thick with the rhythmic, heavy thumping of rotor blades as the ruling elite arrived to celebrate Zimbabwe's 46th independence anniversary. 

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It was a spectacle that felt more like a Hollywood red carpet event or an international aviation expo than a national commemoration in one of the country's most marginalized districts. 

One by one, the helicopters descended, their polished frames gleaming under the Matabeleland South sun, disgorging a class of leaders who seem to have long ago decoupled their lives from the dusty, difficult reality of the people they claim to serve. 

The sheer irony of the scene was suffocating. 

While the "liberators" arrived in air-conditioned cabins, floating high above the crumbling infrastructure of a broken nation, the people below were standing in the dirt of a province where poverty is not just a statistic but a way of life.

Matabeleland South is a region defined by its resilience but haunted by state neglect. 

This is a province where approximately 76% of households struggle under the weight of poverty and 22% live in the crushing grip of extreme deprivation. 

These are families who survive on the margins, eking out a living through small-scale mining and subsistence agriculture in a land where water is a luxury and electricity is a distant memory. 

The contrast was jarring. 

The elite flew in because the roads in this region, much like the roads nationwide, resemble craters in a war zone. 

Who can forget the humiliating scenes from last year's celebrations in Gokwe? 

There, the flashy SUVs of the powerful were filmed spinning their wheels, stuck deep in the treacherous mud of the very roads they have failed to maintain for nearly half a century. 

The switch to helicopters is not just a logistical choice. 

It is a tactical retreat from the consequences of their own incompetence.

The tragedy deepens when we look at the future of Maphisa. 

In the 2025 academic cycle, eleven primary schools in the district recorded a zero percent pass rate at the grade seven level. 

This is the ultimate indictment of a government that has abandoned the rural child. 

While the elite's children are shielded by private tutors or enrolled in expensive schools abroad, the children of Matabeleland South are taught in dilapidated classrooms, often without textbooks or qualified teachers. 

A zero percent pass rate is not an accident. 

It is the predictable outcome of decades of marginalization and the systematic looting of resources that should have funded the education of the next generation. 

It is a betrayal of the very essence of independence.

Forty-six years after the Union Jack was lowered, we are told to celebrate the "gains of independence" while our leaders cannot even drive to a rural outpost without fear of their luxury vehicles being swallowed by potholes. 

If the gains of independence are only visible from the window of a private helicopter, then independence has not yet reached the Zimbabwean people. 

It is a disgrace that those in power feel no shame. 

In a functional democracy, a leader would be embarrassed to fly over a community where the majority cannot afford three square meals a day. 

They would be mortified to land in a district where there is no decent public hospital and where the "best" healthcare available is often a long trek to a poorly equipped clinic that lacks basic life-saving medication.

The question of where the money goes is answered by the very existence of that helicopter parade. 

Zimbabwe is a land of staggering wealth, blessed with diamonds, lithium, platinum, and gold. 

We have some of the most fertile agricultural land on the continent. 

Yet, that wealth is captured by a predatory few through highly inflated public tenders and the industrial-scale smuggling of our minerals. 

The cost of just one of those helicopters could have equipped several district hospitals with dialysis machines, ventilators, and essential drugs. 

It could have funded the rehabilitation of the roads that currently isolate Maphisa from the rest of the country. 

Instead, the wealth is converted into mansions, luxury fleets, and foreign shopping trips, leaving the masses to survive on handouts and "donated" boreholes.

Nothing illustrates this cruelty more vividly than the sight of liberation war veterans lining up to receive bicycles from the authorities. 

This was perhaps the most stinging insult of the entire weekend. 

These are the men and women who took up arms against a well-equipped colonial regime to usher in the very freedom that the current elite is now privatizing. 

To see these heroes reduced to paupers, forced to survive on state handouts and "donated" equipment, is heartbreaking. 

They fought for a country where every citizen would have the dignity of a decent home, a stable job, and a pension that means something. 

Instead, they have been sidelined by those who were still in nappies during the struggle but who have now mastered the art of grabbing the nation's riches. 

A bicycle is not a reward for a war hero. 

It is a badge of their manufactured poverty.

This brings us to the most pressing and cynical question of our time. 

In the midst of the current push to amend the constitution to allow the president to extend his term by two more years, do we really believe that a bicycle handout is justification for more of the same? 

We have seen the choreographed and coached crowds at the public hearings for the Constitutional Amendment (No. 3) Bill. 

These groups, often bused in and fed a script, claim the president is doing a "great job." 

They point to the drilling of boreholes and the distribution of agricultural inputs as evidence of progress. 

But we must be clear about one thing. 

These are not gifts from a benevolent leader's private pocket. 

This is our money. 

Every borehole and every bag of seed is funded by the taxes of the Zimbabwean people. 

Whether it is the income tax deducted from a struggling worker's salary or the VAT paid by a rural grandmother when she buys a loaf of bread, the public treasury belongs to the public.

There is a profound psychological trap at play here. 

When people are deliberately impoverished, they are made to feel grateful for the crumbs that fall from the table of those who stole the loaf. 

We must ask why anyone in their right mind would not question why they need a handout in the first place in a country so richly endowed. 

Why is Maphisa not a bustling, self-sustaining town with world-class infrastructure? 

Why do the people there not have the disposable income to buy their own vehicles and build their own modern homes? 

The answer was parked on the grass in Maphisa this weekend. 

The wealth of the nation is being consumed by a few people who have become so disconnected from the suffering of the many that they see no irony in flying helicopters over people who are being told to be grateful for a bicycle.

This is the greatest paradox of our time. 

The very people who have been most harmed by the current governance structure are often the ones being manipulated into calling for its extension. 

To want a leader to stay in power because they gave you a bicycle after forty-six years of failure is to accept a permanent state of underdevelopment. 

It is to agree that your children and grandchildren should also grow up in a world of zero percent pass rates and impassable roads. 

We cannot afford to be blinded by the "politics of the stomach" while the future of the nation is being bargained away. 

The helicopters in Maphisa were a loud, thumping reminder that for the ruling elite, independence is a private party. 

For everyone else, it is a long, dusty walk on a road that leads nowhere. 

We must stop thanking our leaders for the crumbs and start asking what happened to the cake.

© 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