In the epic 1986 TV mini-series Shaka Zulu Doctor Henry
Fynn (Robert Powell) treats a young woman whom the village medicine man had
pronounced dead back to health. The black natives were dually impressed by what
they saw as the white man’s magical powers. A myth Lt. Francis Farewell (Edward
Fox), leading the expedition, was quick to encourage and to exploit for selfish
gain. It was easy for an “unscrupulous” man to turn himself into a God in
Africa, remarked Dr. Fynn.
The movie was talking of the Africa of Shaka
kaSenzangakhona of the early 1800s, over 200 years ago now, and yet Dr. Fynn’s
warning of unscrupulous mortals who would want to proclaim themselves Gods is
still ringing true to this day.
Indeed many of our corrupt and incompetent leaders are the
hand of the Almighty in their birth and appointment to high office to justify
why they must remain in their high office. After all if the Almighty did indeed
anoint and appointed them leader, it is not for mere mortals to remove them
from office. What God has anointed is no for mortals to bring down in the name
of democratic accountability.
Some of the claims to divine interventions to escape the
rigorous consequences of free, fair and credible democratic votes span the
whole spectrum ranging from being hilariously pathetic to blasphemy.
"We're donating these chicks because we want to
economically empower our communities through this income-generating project.
I'm not expecting to get a commission or tithe from you because I'm not God,
but an angel who was just sent to deliver the goods," VP Mhpoko told his
listeners recently.
Ever since his appointment as VP in December 2014, here
is a man who clearly believed that he had been transformed from an ordinary
mortal to someone truly special; an
angel. One of the burning issues with him has been his stubborn refusal to move
out of the five-star hotel where he has remained holed up ever since at great
expense to the nation who pays the bill. He has reportedly refused several houses
offered to him because they were not good enough for someone of his position
and standing!
VP Mhpoko cannot be an angel of the same God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob most of us know of because He has never ever approved the abuse
of power by all those he chose to be His messengers. Never ever! And I am cock
sure He would never approve the squandering of over $600 a day for over a year
and half now in country were hundreds of new born babies across the country are
dying every week for lack of something as basic as an incubator. What man of
God would allow that to happen in his name!?
Richard Morgan Tsvangirai had his transformative day on
11 February 2009 when he took his oath of office to be Prime Minister of the
Republic of Zimbabwe; he seized to be a mere mortal like you and me to join the
select few touched by the finger of God!
“God has created me for a purpose and if that purpose is
not to be president of the country, that’s fine,” Tsvangirai told his
supporters recently.
“I have fulfilled what I think I was created to do and I
am doing it to the best of my ability.”
The single most important task he and his fellow MDC
friends were set to do during their days in the GNU was to implement a raft of
democratic reforms to ensure Zimbabwe’s next elections are free, fair and credible.
SADC leaders did their best to remind Tsvangirai of this key task but he
completely ignored them. No doubt he considered himself so special he could not
demean himself by listening to mere mortals even those holding comparable high
office in their own right.
SADC leaders abandoned the arrogant Tsvangirai and his
corrupt and incompetent MDC friends soon after Mugabe blatantly rigged the
country’s July 2013 elections. MDC leaders “were too busy enjoying themselves
being in the GNU they forgot why they were there!” charged the irate SADC
Leaders.
Tsvangirai has changed the MDC’s constitution to extend
his stay as leader of the party – in line with his thinking as the one chosen
by God to lead. Democratic constitution and free vote cannot be allowed to interfere
in with God’s master plan!
The waste case of unscrupulous human arrogance shamelessly
and shamefully pedaled as the decree from the heavens is that of Mugabe. Whilst
the tyrant has confined himself to the declaration that he would rule Zimbabwe
until the Lord says “Come!” The tyrant has rigged elections using all manner of
dirty tricks from vote buying to using brute force including cold blooded
murdered to ensure he remained in power for life.
Mugabe has sworn time and time again that he has always
held free and fair elections and yet has shameless promoted his
no-regime-change mantra oblivious that this is an oxymoron. No doubt, as the one
chosen by God to do His will, the tyrant must feel he must have special dispensation
to be totally irrational and yet still be judged not just rational and but even
godly.
Mugabe’s Zanu PF cronies and minions have showered the
tyrant with praise with the late Mbare Zanu PF MP calling Mugabe “the second son
of God!” His wife Grace, fearful of losing her First Lady privileged extravagant
lifestyle if he should stop being State President has postulated that he will
rule “from behind the grave”. Whether she meant by this that he will perform
the miracle of the prophet Jonah or Jesus Christ Himself and rise from the dead,
she did not say.
Power is the most potent hallucinogen there is, get a whiff
of it and you immediately start to believe that there is absolutely nothing you
cannot do. Nothing! Secure absolute power and you really see you see as an
infallible demigod whose very mortality is causing consternation and regret on
earth and high heavens alike.
The central tenet of a healthy, functional and successful
democratic government – the only system of government that has delivered
freedom, justice, peace and prosperity to the greatest number of people in a society
or nation consistently for the longest period in human history – is that no
one, absolutely no one, must ever be allowed to exercise power without constrains.
Power must be shared so there are always checks and balance to prevent power
being abused.
It is now over 2 500 years since the Greeks adopted
democracy as a system of stable and just government other nations, the world
over, have adopted the same system of government ,fine tuning it to meet their
needs, and prospered. We in Africa and in Zimbabwe in particular have failed to
come to embrace democracy or come up with a system that works and hence have
remained bogged down in the world unscrupulous heretics who abuse high office
to make the demigod whom no mortal can hold to account.
VP Mphoko, Morgan Tsvangirai, Robert Mugabe and all the
other leaders who have behaved and/or continue behave as if they are God’s
anointed whom we mere mortals cannot hold to account, have done so only because
our democratic institutions have been to weak and feeble to stop them abusing
their position and power. We need to overhaul our system of governance to
ensure power is never again exercised by anyone without proper checks and
balance.
Zanu PF was doomed to fail, that was a certainty the day President Mugabe seized power for himself turning everyone into a subservient serf including all the other party leaders, "vakadzi vaMugabe" as Margaret Dongo rightly pointed out. All the values people had held dear dur-ing the war of independence like freedom, justice, one-man-one-vote, etc. were all thrown out of the window. It was Mugabe's will and his will alone that ruled the land.
ReplyDeleteVakadzi vaMugabe went along with President Mugabe's dictatorial and even actively pro-moted it, many of them like Mnangagwa and Shiri played role in the planning and carrying out of vote rigging and murders. Mugabe rewarded them with generous share of the looted wealth and allowed them to establish their own serfdoms which too ruled with an iron fist.
Mugabe used the same dirty tactic of buying loyalty with gravy train promises to subdue the MDC village idiots throughout the GNU; no wonder they failed to get even one reform im-plemented in five years, how can the reform a system that they are now part of.
It was all to end in tears because the criminal waste of human and material resources was economically unsustainable. After decades of mismanagement and rampant corruption the chickens have finally come home to roost, the economy is in serious meltdown. Zanu PF itself is imploding because President Mugabe does not have any more loot to them all happy and they are fighting over the scraps like clans hungry hyenas fighting over the remaining thigh bone of an elephant!
It was the ordinary people of Zimbabwe who risked life and limp in the war of independence to force Smith to give up power. And no sooner was President Mugabe in office and he was already talking as if it was he and a handful of others who did all the hard work and, more significantly, are entitle to freedom. liberty, peace and all the things the people had gone to war to secure. It was for him to decide what the masses will get; freedom and human rights were no long birth rights but privileges to be given to some and denied to others to suit the political fortunes of Mugabe and Zanu PF.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest mistake we made as nation was to allow President Mugabe and his cronies to de-ny Zimbabweans their freedom and basic rights including the right to decide who was to rule the country and, even worse, take human lives. It is not surprising that a tyrant like Mugabe who was sure he will never be remove from office and thus could do as he pleased and did just that ended up feeling that he is a god-on-earth.
People like VP Mphoko, Tsvangirai, Mnangagwa, etc. have all seen President Mugabe strut-ting like a God and have all thought to themselves that they too can be like the tyrant. What-ever position they have held they have viewed it as a stepping stone to the presidency and, as a god-in-making, they saw nothing wrong with them behaving like one!
Someone once told me that corruption has become a permanent fixture of Nigerian life be-cause it is the political leaders who are benefiting the most from it and, surprise of all surpris-es, it is the same politicians who have the power to come up with the laws to eradicate the scourge once and once for all. Everyone agrees it has brought the country nothing but misery because it is by its very nature such a criminal waste of resources. The politicians make a ca-reer out of promising the people they will end corruption if they are elected into office and then promptly forget their promise as they take full advantage of their position to secure lu-crative corrupt deals and feather their own nest!
Whilst Mugabe (or whoever his successor happens to be) lords over parliament, the judiciary, his own party and all the state institution there will be no meaningful democratic reforms im-plemented. The same is true of Tsvangirai at MDC.
The GNU offered a unique opportunity for the country to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and replace it with a healthy and functional democracy because by forcing President Mugabe to sign the GPA stipulating the need for the democratic reforms the tyrant had his hands tied. Sadly he was able to bribe Tsvangirai and his MDC friends into doing nothing about imple-menting the reforms for all the five years of the GNU.
Since the end of the GNU President Mugabe has once again taken up his position as lord and master of the realm whose whim is the law of the land. The only way to get any meaningful reforms implemented is by forcing him to step down first, whilst he retains his dictatorial veto powers nothing of substance will ever be accomplished.
People like Mutsvangwa sold their liberation war beliefs and values when they decided to team up with President Mugabe in denying the people their freedoms and rights under the pretext regime change was a threat to the nation. How can they pretend to be freedom fighters when they are the ones denying the people freedom!
ReplyDeletePresident Mugabe is well known for using other people to do his dirty work and then disown them; Mutsvangwa and all the other rogue war veterans who until recently were the regime's thugs are the latest in the group of those used and then kicked in the teeth by the tyrant. The people of Zim-babwe have better things to do than feel sorry for sell-out thugs, dzakutsaku, the likes of Mutsvangwa!