Robert Mugabe is a living hero

Like him or hate him, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is one of the few surviving icons of Africa's nationalist old guard, whose life is celebrated the whole of Africa, while in his homeland he is destined to be the people's darling for generations to come.

In Zimbabwe individuals that have failed to benefit from President's Mugabe's benevolent policies are rest assured that they are to be cursed by offspring's from their future generations. President Mugabe's land reform programme that has matured into being the land reform legacy cannot be compared to any empowerment programme ever to take off in any part of Africa.

The current indigenisation policy is another plus for President Mugabe in his quest towards the total emancipation of the black Zimbabweans. This policy cannot even be equated to South Africa's Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy that has failed to uplift the lives of the majority of black South Africans.

Indeed, Mugabe is a fine gem to emerge from a pool of Africa's founding nationalist. He is a man who could be judged to have read into all the other nationalist minds and thrived to make perfect their acts during his lifetime.

Plainly put President Mugabe who turned 91 this year belongs to the class of the old guard of which some have passed on and includes: Guinea's Ahmed Sekou Toure (1984), Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah (1972) Egypt's Colonel Gamal Abdel Naser (1970), Kenya's Jomo Kenyatta, Senegal's Leopold Senghor (2001).

Amongst those still living are Zambia's founding President Kenneth Kaunda and Namibia's Sam Nujoma to name a few.

Martini Meredith in his book The State of Africa: A History of the Continent Since Independence gives some insights to the aforementioned Africa's founding fathers.

According to Meredith's account, at independence Toure extended state control to every sector of the economy. Independent traders were denounced as bourgeois traitors to the revolution and replaced by a huge state trading corporation, new state industries were launched as part of an ambitious industrialisation programme, agricultural cooperatives were established, and public works expanded.

This according to Meredith resulted in, "a string of state corporations that were badly managed, heavily in debt, rife with corruption and riddled by low production. The agricultural cooperatives also failed and as a result of low crop prices set by the government, food production declined."

Turning to Leopold Senghor's rule of Senegal, as the country's first President his rule was heavily indebted to France. He relied on French advisers at the same time allowing French companies to continue their domination of trade and industry. He kept the French Praetorian Guard at a military base on the perimeter of Dakar's international airport to ensure national security. He rebuffed demands of nationalisation of French and other foreign companies, arguing that it would kill the goose that laid the golden egg. He insisted that French capital was essential for the economic development of Senegal. In Dakar the French population actually grew after independence. Senghor spent much of his time in Paris.

The triumph that Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser enjoyed during his first years in power was followed by a catalogue of disappointments and disasters. All his Pan Arab ambitions, his hopes for an Arab socialist revolution turned sour. Most disastrous of all was Egypt's humiliating defeat in the Six Day War against Israel in 1967 which ended with Israel's occupation of Sinai, the loss of the Sinai oilfields and the closure of the Suez Canal. Against all odds his reputation as the man who had stripped the old ruling class of their power, nationalised their wealth, booted out foreigners, restored to Egypt a sense of dignity and self-respect and led the country towards national regeneration won him more friends than woes amongst the masses.

Jomo Kenyatta adhered to capitalism encouraging both indigenous private enterprise and foreign investment. With government assistance, an expanding African middle class grasped opportunities in the civil service, agriculture, commerce and industry. In Zambia Kaunda could not contain the labour backed opposition leading to his defeat in the Presidential elections to the diminutive Frederick Chiluba.

Coming back to President Mugabe, at independence in 1980, he preached the gospel of non-racial retribution. Unfortunately, the white resident in Zimbabwe took President Mugabe's forgiveness to mean their continued monopoly to the land leading to the fast track land reform programme of 2000.

The fast track land reform programme saw the land being redistributed to more than 300 000 new farmers. Today, Zimbabwe's black tobacco farmers rank as part of the most affluent individuals in the country.

Latest statistics show that more than 65 000 farmers had registered to grow and sell the lucrative crop in the 2013 season compared to 34 673 the previous season. In 2012 Zimbabwe's tobacco exports raked in US$771 million at an average of US$5,94 per kg. The crop is expected to drive economic growth, thanks to President Mugabe's land reform.

President Mugabe has also opened up mining to small scale mining which is estimated to be having at least 300 000 members countrywide. Under his support for the small scale miners President Mugabe has okayed the provision milling centres for small scale gold miners to enhance their capacity, a move that is to increase grip on the grassroots. Small-scale gold miners in Zimbabwe account for over 10% of total gold output in the country every year.

His indigenisation policy is also proving popular.

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Tawanda Museve can be contacted at tawandamuseve@yahoo.com