Dabengwa in danger

Ever since President Robert Mugabe made the passionate plea to ZAPU President Dumiso Dabengwa and his Comrades to return back to Zanu PF on the 22nd of December 2013, the media has been abuzz with related news related to this unusual political gaffe by the State President. Of significance is the fact that the President admitted that he misses Dabengwa so much that it makes him cry. ZAPU's response to this invitation didn't help matters either. As the President holidays in the Far East, reality must be sinking that the wailing nights will be long and unrelenting.

Several analysts have attempted to explain why the President made that public invitation to Dabengwa and his men with several reasons being thrown around. It is clear that there is more than one reason why the veteran ruler delivered manna to ZAPU in a manner no one ever anticipated. To begin with, is it reasonable for a victorious candidate to publicly invite his vanquished rival so soon after elections? Was this an act of statesmanship? If so, why was Morgan Tsvangirai, his closest rival, told to go to hell and even offered him a one way ticket by the President? Is it surprising that both offers have been declined? Morgan probably wanted a return ticket while Dabengwa felt that the hell offered to Morgan was better than the ZANU PF one! For this writer, this offer to Dabengwa smacked of arrogance in two ways. Firstly you don't make such a political invitation at a public rally if you want them to respect your advances. Secondly if Dabengwa and his Comrades are being missed so much, what effort did anyone make to find out what their concerns were which led them to abandon you? Have those concerns been addressed for them to consider re-joining you?

Needless to say, this invitation exposed two important issues which have tremendous ramifications to Zimbabwe's political terrain. The 2013 national elections confirmed one sore and painful thing to all those that had hitherto dedicated their entire lives to destroying ZAPU. The elections brought to the fore that ZAPU has arisen like a phoenix and those mischievous fellows who printed ballot papers were naughty enough to put the ZAPU Bull and Dabengwa on top of ZANU PF and its candidate. As if that was not enough, their candidate had to be careful not to mark his vote near the tail of the raging, angry bull. That must have been very painful indeed. But the cohabitation invitation must have been caused by something deeper than this. This call may have been caused by the real performance of ZAPU in those elections. This gives credence to those that claim the election was so rigged it left the riggers shocked at the margin of success. Assuming for a moment that this was true, and then it means ZAPU were robbed of more votes than what was delivered by ZEC. Even if it were not true, President Mugabe is right to be worried by the fact that 25,000 Zimbabweans from across the country still remember ZAPU and its bull. The fact that these 25,000 people voted ZAPU even without the party campaigning and distributing a flier or t-shirt must be worrying for a politician of President Mugabe's experience. Now that it is clear that the progressive world see ZAPU as the genuine alternative to ZANU PF in the run up to the 2018 elections, the President has taken the initiative to once again destroy ZAPU before elections. This call must be viewed in the context of the delay in appointing Simon Khaya Moyo to the post of Second Vice President. Simon has every right to be angry at his boss inviting a clear rival when he is packed at the gate of Jerusalem. So according to this writer, the cohabitation call has everything to do with the 2018 national elections where, if ZAPU has half the resources ZANU PF has, those in the corridors of power know that it will be Armageddon.

As was predictable to any analyst, the invitation by the President for Dabengwa to re-join ZANU PF was the proverbial carrot whose sticky cousin remained lurking in the shadows. When Dabengwa and ZAPU decided that they will have none of the cohabitation arrangement, the stick was always going to be deployed sooner or later. And deploy they did. The first salvo was delivered by one John Songo who attacked Dabengwa as a traitor, sellout and murderer. He went on to claim that Dabengwa does not even deserve the title of a hero. The graphic garbage spewed by this fellow who conveniently called himself a historian will never go unchallenged by those of us who respect all our heroes irrespective of their party affiliation. It is clear that John Songo is just a starter to a stale and tasteless main course to be served by nameless and faceless waiters whose kitchen is built at the centre of hell where cooking utensils are AK 47s and bazookas while the salt shaker drops live bullets. We have a choice to either dine with them, and die or to deliver our own concoction of Russian made American cooked goulash. Dare us you morons, we will hit back with the ferocity of a tiger. After all, what sort of a historian has only one publication to his name whose title is "Dumiso Dabengwa is no super hero"? Is that what makes a historian? If so, this is simply the height of historical lunacy! Some of us knew from the day Dabengwa declined this marriage of inconvenience that after the flower boys the brick boys will follow. If it stuck to Tsvangirai and his Western puppetry it won't stick on Dabengwa and his heroism.

Dabengwa's nationalism does not need a hymn from a Songo singing for his rotten supper. It is on record that the soldiers who brought Zimbabwe from Lancaster are General Peter Walls (Commander), Dumiso Dabengwa (Zipra) and Solomon Mujuru (Zanla) in what was the Joint Military Command at Lancaster. He later led the integration of the armies before being conferred the rank of Major General, only second to Mujuru in the new military order in terms of guerrilla soldiers. If ZAPU had confidence in him in 1979 and Prime Minister Mugabe had confidence in him in 1980, who is John Songo to give us a dosage of contaminated diarrhoea so loud he mistakes it for a chorus? Dumiso Dabengwa is as a hero to ZAPU and Zimbabwe as Josiah Magama Tongogara is to ZANU and Zimbabwe and no amount of hip hop (or whatever genre this Songo sings) hallucination can change this fact. The fact that Mugabe himself wants him back is because he knows the potency of this man. Even Jonathan Moyo (the only other politician begged by Mugabe) publicly acknowledged that Dabengwa is his hero.

Then enter that man from the East: the one who only aspires to become Vice President of Zimbabwe before he expires. I mean that scoundrel who held the whole country spellbound by magically discovering diesel oozing rocks in Chinhoyi. Yes I mean that foul mouthed rascal masquerading as the Godfather of Manicaland, Didymus Mutasa. The man has no competition in the league of idiocy. For him to claim that ZAPU Properties now belong to ZANU PF simply because the ZANU PF Chairman is a former ZAPU member is as breath-taking in buffoonery as believing that diesel can ooze from innocent Chinhoyi rocks. The properties ZAPU want back were bought through contributions by individuals many of whom have nothing to do with ZANU PF. To allege that Simon Khaya Moyo is now the Estate manager of these properties by virtue of being ZANU Chairman is akin to making him worse than a rapist, but a sodimist of satanic proportions. Just how does a man lay claim ownership to another man's property beats the festive liquor out of me? Is that not the reason our war veterans invaded white owned farms in the first place? If it was ok for our war veterans to take back farms on the basis of birth right and skin colour why is it treasonous for ZAPU to demand back their stolen farms on the basis of both their birth right and death right earned through sweat and blood? The rightful owners of those properties may die before repossessing them but their children and even grandchildren will one day demand back or die trying. This call by Dabengwa to return back those properties is recorded for posterity much the same way Mbuya Nehanda is accused of threatening an avalanche of living bones resurrecting. Even those blue-chip companies who are busy parcelling out ZAPU farms near Harare are well known and when the time comes, there shall be a gnashing of teeth by those feasting on the graves of our forefathers. They must be warned that they are building houses on stolen property and therefore are bloodsucking thieves and accessories to Gukurahundi murder.

We are now wiser Didymus. Hands off our Commander Dumiso Dabengwa. Don't touch him for to you touching and torching is the same thing. Long Live Solomon Mujuru! Long live all our heroes, some touched, torched and touching but never the torching!

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