Sikhala's doctrine before his arrest

EDITOR,

BEFORE the fateful August 21, which heralded the end of Job "Saro Wiwa" Sikhala's revolutionary campaign against corruption outside the iron bars of  prison, he had a few days before he proclaimed that revolutionaries do not cease their transformative and radical people-centred work until their liberation objective is met.

My curious question to his perception of Malcolm X's tragic end was answered with "I am ready to lead a revolution and for martyrdom."

The foregoing is what inspires this great son of the soil who is now languishing at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison.

He had publicly stated and privately confided that the people's rights superseded his own personal pursuits and as such championing the fight against corruption and the rapacious aggrandisement characteristic of the Zanu-PF regime was paramount and sacrosanct to him.

Sikhala pondered at the prolonged democratic musings of the Zimbabwean people and the delayed ideal destiny that he had passionately fought for ever since his youthful days at the University of Zimbabwe.

In his unrelenting and Karanga dialect he roared "zvokwadi mwana wamai this repressive regime will meet the same fate as that of Cambodia's Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge."

With revolutionary optimism he bellowed, "My friend look at the demise of Pinochet, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Omar al Bashir, Jean Bedel Bokassa, Adolf Hitler, Mobutu Sese Seko, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Sani Abacha, and Idi Amin Dada."

He ended up writing a three part series article which could not transition to the third part because of his arrest and it was entitled, "All Dictators Die Miserable Deaths."

In what he termed epistles to Zimbabweans, he reassured his fellow countrymen that unrelenting fighters who have the resolve and tenaciousness to liberate the oppressed ultimately guide dictators to miserable endings.

In his humble and organic style of prosecuting the anti-corruption struggle against the Zanu-PF elites which had been championed by his comrades like Jacob Ngarivhume,  Sikhala had managed to appeal to Zimbabweans across the political divide.

The 31st July call for national action and the unprecedented security deployment which culminated in the Zimbabwean lives matter international hysteria was a net effect of his visionary hope of a post-repressive and corruption free nation.

In the safety of his contrasted hide outs ranging from guerrilla-like settings to unknown locations as far as Zambia and Mozambique, he used social media to an anticipating population delivering his famous "Zimbabweans I come to you."

By the time the State apprehended him in Tynwald, Harare, Sikhala had forged ties with South Africa's Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in a rare and welcome southern African post- independence regional alliance that he envisioned as the climax of the struggle for a democratic and prosperous Zimbabwe.

To him, the miasma of poverty would be fumigated by the ordinary people and not the Zanu-PF elites who were the originators and source of the malaise.

As he entered the Magumete (Prisons van) at Harare Magistrates'Courts, he shouted "The People Shall Be Victorious, Vincere Caritate, Zimbabwe Para Todos" and was whisked away by the prison guards to Chikurubi Maximum.