Of Nando's and strawberry desserts

Out there in the open is a cold, desolate and unforgiving environment, especially for lazy layabouts such as petty thieves and common criminals who shudder to contemplate where their next meal will come from. It, therefore, comes as no surprise to read from a respectable family paper with the widest circulation in the country, The Herald, that sixty eight MDC-T and Zimbabwe People First activists who are in custody for partaking in orgies of violence that resulted in destruction of property and infrastructure, are demanding five-star treatment in remand prison.

It is quite ironic that people that have been in the forefront of trying and dismally failing to cripple the country's economy through purported shut-downs and make the country ungovernable as a way of bringing the ZANU PF government down  are the same people now approaching the same loathed administration for VIP treatment.

For the uninitiated, Nando's is a delicatessen that defines culinary refinement. Patented, you don't find it in the kitchen of any greasy spoon restaurant. Talk about poetic injustice because the contradiction between this refined meal and the course conduct of the sixty eight yobbos is frankly inescapable. But then, maybe I am being too stern on these opposition malcontents. Maybe they do require that kind of special treatment but regrettably, they are barking the wrong tree in demanding it from Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS).

As hired hands, the gung-ho activists were mobilised on the promise that they would be rewarded financially as well as materially through keeping all that would have been looted from shops in the CBD. The loot has not materialised, neither have the finances nor the so-called glory of shutting down the country and ousting President Mugabe from power. Nevertheless, the stomach requires to be fed.

My point is that these criminals should redirect their demands to their respective opposition political parties. They allowed themselves to be hoodwinked into abusing their civil rights as enshrined in and protected by the country's constitution by violently demonstrating and leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Naturally, the buck should stop with their principals. It's comeuppance for MDC-T and Zim People First, not as co-leaders of the ignominious coalition of eighteen rag-tag opposition parties but rather as indicted co-defendants in the western-sponsored regime change puppetry.

These sixty eight and their laughable gimmick will need to join a long list of aggrieved parties rightfully demanding restitution from the opposition parties conscripted into the farcical demonstration for their losses.

ZBC will demand back its truck that was torched near Town House in the same manner that ZRP will seek to recover its vehicle that faced the same fate on that fateful day. Furthermore, there are a number of police officers that were assaulted for no apparent reason other than that they were wearing police uniforms and going about their lawful duties.

Bata and other retail shops will demand that they be reimbursed stock that was looted by opposition activists at the instruction of officiados at Harvest House, just as Huawei must be compensated for loss of its information and telecommunications gadgets.

This list concerned with quantifiable losses is endless. What about those that cannot be quantified? I am talking about the fear that was induced among law-abiding citizens, the anxiety that gripped the nation, the post traumatic stress disorders that will forever haunt those that were harangued for daring to believe in law and order.

There are honest workers in the country, both in the private and public sector, who would decline payment or a return for a service not offered because they are conscientious. Yet their right to an honest day's work was sadistically violated, brutally undermined without any regard to their strong sense of right and wrong.

These are the issues that Richard and Runaida have to contend with. Unfortunately the latter is most likely to be left clinging to the proverbial leg of a missing old woman because of obvious reasons that are a matter of public record to do with the wellbeing of the former. Truth hurts, I know. I wait with bated breath to see how the Courts that have been sanctioning these demonstrations will deal with the demonstrators and demands for restitution from those whose properties and goods were destroyed and looted respectively.

 As a parting shot, if suspected arsonist, hooligans and other purveyors of mayhem have a right to demand five-star treatment while incarcerated, then as a law-abiding and conscientiously progressive Zimbabwean, I demand, from whom it may concern, an anointed pen from a local gospelpreneur  for my article and a $3.9 million meal at Arnaud's in New Orleans, comprising  the  signature Strawberries Arnaud dessert and a 7.09 carat pink diamond to accompany the strawberries served in a marinade of port, red wine, spices and citrus with vanilla ice cream. It is a free country, is it not?

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Sambulo Vuma <samvumindaba@gmail.com