Devolution insults Zimbabwe's dignity

Dear me. Oh, dear, me!

Yes, throw the stones if you care. No sweat, but the fact is that wherever we go in this world, we leave a trail.

We leave DNA; we leave fingerprints and we leave our history; we leave a paper trail.

Hopefully, we do not leave our dignity because the lack of dignity is the absence of our reality…and reality is something we cannot do without.

The trail we leave is how crooks and murderers are contained.

We leave manifestos, statements and notes that we have to explain tomorrow.

I am not going to waste my time on Morgan Tsvangirai's relevance to the liberation of Zimbabwe from Robert Mugabe.

I want to move on to his legacy. And here we talk about the so-called Zimbabwe constitution, a constitution that was rammed down our throats.

A constitution that, overall, is a Zanu-PF constitution but one for whose adoption the MDC vigorously campaigned for.

So many Zimbabweans warned the MDC about the flawed constitution and urged the party not to go ahead with it.

The MDC heard and saw its people being prevented from making contributions to the new constitution; they saw them being beaten up and some getting killed.

The MDC had more evidence of their supporters being abused than they had with rigged elections.

They, however, went out into the hinterland and campaigned for the acceptance and adoption of a constitution among the people, some of whom still swathed in bandages after assaults over the same constitution.

The MDC knew that the constitution was flawed.

It was a betrayal of the people because that constitution was not born out of the people.

But the MDC was too busy looking like government leaders; they were convinced within themselves that victory was theirs.

Today, as then, they are simpletons.

The big heads, led by Tsvangirai himself, believing that outside Harare, the party had its strongest base in Matabeleland, went on to concede many issues, stating that they "will" amend the constitution once in power.

What stupidity!

The MDC knew that the constitution was not a so-called "people-driven constitution" and yet they not only accepted it but actually campaigned for it.

The MDC knew very well that the contributions to the constitution were totally flawed. The party knew that its supporters were being chased away and brutalised.

The MDC knew that the people's views were not being taken into consideration. There was violence.

The outcome of the contributions to the constitution was very well disputed and the MDC itself is primary witness in this regard.

During elections, Mr Tsvangirai made statements to people, in and outside Zimbabwe, assuring them of victory but a few hours later told them that the elections were a farce.

Now, Sipepa Nkomo has launched a case before the courts. Last time I heard, his party, the MDC, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, did not accept the legitimacy of the elections outcome. Now, sitting in Parliament, Spepa Nkomo wants to talk about aspects of the constitution, the very one that people did not like and the same one his party campaigned for acceptance.

Zimbabwe is a nation, and that has absolutely nothing to do with Mugabe.

This nation, this country of ours has seen a lot of abuse.

The heart of the matter is that the problem is with the government we have – not with the nation or the country.

This thing called devolution is a diversion and strips the nation of its dignity. It is nothing short of killing an unborn child to save the mother or, if you wish, killing a mother to save an unborn child.

But we want both alive and must never sacrifice one for the other. Anyone who makes a choice between the two is, in my opinion, killing both.

We should not use Mugabe's barbaric mentality as an excuse to partition Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe is more important than tribes within.

Zimbabwe means more to its subjects than this nonsensical devolution.

Zimbabwe is one country and should never be split up under the guise of this nonsensical MDC arrangement.

It surprises me that the same party that denounced the results of the elections now asks the same "illegal" government to respect a constitution that the MDC itself denounced but later campaigned for.

After we liberate our nation from Mugabe, we will see how to deal with our nation but it is never going to be the parcelling out of the country to one tribe or other.

I challenge the likes of Gorden Moyo and Sipepa Nkomo to stop this bull and playing to the gallery but to work for the liberation of the country.

We should never punish Zimbabwe for the transgressions of an idiot like Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe is a nation; a very robust nation. Zimbabwe is not poor. Zimbabwe is fine…if we can only get rid of the bloodsuckers that are Zanu-PF.

Zimbabwe must heal its wounds.

It has survived wars.

Zimbabwe will survive those we see today, standing and gaining instead of our fathers, mothers and daughters who sacrificed for this country.

All those of our people did not die for Mugabe to be doing what he is doing.

But something tells me we are all wrong and Zimbabweans are right.

Do not let us use this devolution nonsense to entrench tribalism or open doors for secessionist rubbish.

We shall not punish or destroy our country as a response to the savage behaviour of an old, insensitive dictator.

Mugabe's behaviour has insulted and caused much pain and suffering on people across our country.

We are not going to break up Zimbabwe to satisfy little tribes here and there. Devolution is not a solution and I will never accept a situation where Zimbabwe is torn apart to appease tribal intentions such as those allegedly espoused by Sipepa Nkomo.

Our national fight against Mugabe should never be taken as an excuse to campaign for dividing the country.

We will deal with devolution at a time when we are all free, from Beit Bridge, to Matabeleland all the way across to Kariba but only under circumstances that are of interest to Zimbabwe – not a tribe.

And I am talking about a time when we all can freely decide on such a subject to ensure we have our freedoms without dividing our nation. A time when we are not under pressure.

The MDC, weather it is Ncube or Tsvangirai, should worry about keeping the country together.

On this issue, screw both MDC formations! They want to appease supporters at the expense of the nation.

As for Mugabe, we all agree the fool he is. But let's not punish the nation and the country because of this man.

I hope we are all trying to fight to dislodge Mugabe.

We must all strive to regain our country from Robert and Grace, not to parcel our nation into little Bantustans, unless, of course, if there is nostalgia of apartheid South Africa among some among us. In that case, Beit Bridge is open for those who want to cross.

The battle is to remove Mugabe not to create silly tribal nations in the country. At this stage, under our nation's situation, devolution offers no dignity and, worse, has total absence of reality.

Mugabe and Zanu-PF out, then we will address such minor governmental issues.

Let us get to work for Zimbabwe.

I am Tanonoka Joseph Whande and that, my fellow Zimbabweans, is the way it is today, Monday, April 7th, 2014.