NIKUV - what a sexy scapegoat

Since its formation, ZANU is known to have gone to extremes to gain and retain political power. They have used textbook political mastery as well as unorthodox means to achieve their political objectives.

In the early days, this was made easy by the fact that their adversaries set their sights on fairly acquired victories while they set their sights on power, by hook or crook. Their argument was as it is now, that political parties are formed to attain and retain one thing-POWER.

This strong political belief became their driving force to power but later became their own albatross as service delivery became last on their to-do-list. In its formative years, elements in ZANU saw ZAPU and its leadership as an impediment to their aspirations to power and all manner of concoctions were made against Joshua Nkomo and his leadership. Later the same tactic was used against Ndabaningi Sithole which culminated in his deposition from the helm of ZANU.

When on April 3 1887, British historian Lord Acton wrote that, "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely", he would seem to have had the ZANU leadership in mind. This breed would have nothing stand on their way to power. Even revered icons like Joshua Nkomo endured traumatic treatment in the hands of this group of individuals.

Joshua Nkomo went on to give a horrific account of his ordeals in his biography, "The story of my life". This account put to perspective the nature of this species of political carnivores that would stop at nothing on their way to power. This script continued right up to independence where some illustrious sons of the soil met different but horrifying ends to their lives which left neutrals speculating that their demise was as a result of political gamesmanship within and outside the once revolutionary party.

The list of icons whose lives were tragically cut short include but not limited to, General Josiah Magama Tongogara, Herbert Chitepo, William Ndangana, General Rex Nhongo et al. Granted, some could have died due to accidents but to many, their deaths live more questions than answers.

Supporters of ZANU will call the ability to protect power from anyone, internal or external, political mastery and competence as evidenced by their party's smash and grab election victory in 1980 and subsequent elections. However, a probing eye will not miss this devilish trend characterised by ZANU's ascension to power over dead skeletons and souls.

The common tool they have used against all its opponents is deceptive brutality of Machiavellian precision. If the example of Joshua Nkomo in 1963 is not clear enough, then the example of Joshua Nkomo and ZAPU in 1983 to 1987 aptly delivers the above narrative. If the example of Ndabaningi Sithole's dethronement from power was revolutionary justified, then his arrest well after independence for attempting to blow up President Mugabe's motorcade gives you an insight on their manual of political gamesmanship.

While Ndabaningi Sithole faced imprisonment for alleged American style gangsterism in his so called attempt to blow up a Presidential motorcade and all life inside the limousines, Joshua Nkomo had a whole battalion deployed to deal with him, his party and his supporters. This is what is done to you if you dare threaten our national sovereignty and the trappings that go with it. If this is not brutal then nothing ever is. If this is not precision at the highest level then nothing is.

However the biggest scandal in the history of our country's political marketplace has gone unnoticed by many. Until now. Since the formation of the MDC in 1999, brutal coercion was employed briefly before a new tactic was unleashed on the unsuspecting leadership of this mass movement. The MDC posed the biggest threat to the ruling party not because of their capacity to organise but because the general population was organised against the ruling elite.

The long suffering masses of this country simply wanted to identify with a party through which their aspirations would be fulfilled. The MDC became that natural choice and Morgan Tsvangirai the face of the struggling masses. Faced with this formidable challenge rich in both passion and determination but clearly deficient in class, ZANU-PF revisited their rule book from where scriptures that baptised Joshua Nkomo and Ndabaningi Sithole were plucked from.

This time they decided to deploy a daring yet slick tool against their adversaries. Where it took a North Korean trained army to destroy Nkomo and his ZAPU, it took less than a dozen bootilicious women to destroy the MDC. The fact that every man has a weakness for the fairer sex is well documented and duly acknowledged. But what is scandalous about this is that senior leaders of the MDC, in their lustful moments of weaknesses, have not only allowed themselves to be shepherded into bedrooms, but did so even in the enemy camp.

They have allowed the enemy to know every little detail about their sexual preferences, size and shapes of their gratification tools. What is even worse is that some in the top echelons of the MDC are self-confessed enemies of that one-size-fit-all lubricated rubber which prevents unwanted pregnancies and some dreaded diseases.

Legend has it that one such senior leader, well known for his penchant to hide his banana anywhere, everywhere and to anyone, successfully imported this dreadful disease which he successfully exported to some unsuspecting victims all over the place. Some are senior members of his party while some belong to his rivals politically. What makes this case complicated is that the fellow is aware of his status and the boys in dark glasses are too and in possession of graphic details and photos of the fellow's lustful escapades.

Sometime before this year's elections, the boys in dark glasses moved swiftly to blackmail the poor fellow and by the time electioneering started, a pact to lose the election in return for saving his face was signed, sealed and delivered to the unsuspecting populace. This is evidenced by the fact that some started claiming that the election was rigged way before voting. This is further confirmed by inaudible allegations of vote rigging with little or no evidence to support these allegations.

These leaders know how they were rigged but it will be too embarrassing to tell the whole world how it really happened. The truth is ZANU-PF collected sufficient dossiers of immoral behaviour of Sodomic proportions by their rivals and that was dangled right in their faces and was traded with a resounding loss for the MDC. To justify this impending electoral loss, they went on to deliberately and systematically destroy their political structures through imposing candidates and an incoherent campaign strategy.

Still ZANU-PF was not sure if these guys will deliver their own defeat, so they needed an insurance policy. As a result, they forced the top leaders of MDC to publicly pose for a photo while holding the ZANU-PF manifesto before their own supporters. What a political masterstroke that was! How else can you describe the sight of three senior MDC leaders posing for pictures holding a ZANU-PF manifesto without wearing any MDC party regalia? From then on, ZANU-PF knew that their blackmail had worked and were assured of certain victory in the elections.

The choice of the leaders smiling and showing so much appreciation for the ZANU-PF manifesto is legendary. The fellows were posing for cameras under instructions from ZANU-PF smiling from ear to ear totally endorsing their rivals manifesto deep in the election season. This was an act of deception of the highest order, only matched in dramatic fashion by the escape to Botswana by Morgan Tsvangirai after winning elections in 2008.



The fact that no attempt was made to disguise what book these leaders were reading during that photo shoot means that they were under strict instructions to face the cameras and how. This was, by all accounts, a choreographed charade and an act of public obedience to the Mafia bosses that no act of electoral mischief like winning would happen. Immediately after that picture was taken, ZANU-PF used it as the party's principal campaign image which was splashed on giant billboards throughout the country.

For ZANU-PF, that picture served two purposes, firstly the masses were supposed to decode that "if your leaders can find our manifesto so exciting, who are you not to" while on the other hand they wanted to remind all and sundry that the fellows on that picture were ZANU-PF after all. That is why ZANU-PF was so comfortable before elections and clearly talked about a landslide, while those in MDC confidently talked about defeat. If Zimbabweans were Nikuved in any way, it is its leaders who are so compromised so much so that they do not know if they are coming or going.

They are literally between a rock and a hard place. The only Nikuv that robbed us of democratic change is female in gender, gorgeous in structure and multiple in numbers but inherently Zimbabwean in nationality, except for one litigious South African sexpatriate. As a result, the struggle for democratic change has been hijacked by ZANU-PF itself and if leaders in the opposition ranks remain the same compromised lot, expecting to remove ZANU-PF from power will be akin to expecting a mosquito to cure malaria.

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Mso Ndlovu is a social and political commentator writing in his own capacity. He can be contacted on msondlovu@gmail.com