Mudenda calls for educated MPs - what, Willowvale Motors looters were educated, thank you! N Garikai

 “Zimbabwe has one of the highest literacy rates in Africa. It is a country of learned people - the former President Robert Mugabe had no less than seven degrees,” wrote barrister and former journalist Brian Hungwe in BBC/Bulawayo 24.

“But the education appears not to have filtered down to the one place where it is badly needed, the National Assembly - and the speaker of parliament, Jacob Mudenda, is worried.

“The South African, Ugandan, Nigerian and Somali parliaments are just some of those that have witnessed brawls.

“So it's not clear why Mr Mudenda wants more degrees in the house, when boxing gloves might be more useful.”

A very witty article Brian. 

If you should ever stand for public office yourself; you will have my vote. But come to think of it, what good will that vote be to you in a country where elections are routinely rigged! 

Whilst I would readily agree the quality of public policies, programmes and governance have all suffered because those entrusted to formulate such policies, etc. had no clue what they were doing. The public debates and discourse have been “sterile, bereft of research or reason”, as you rightly quoted the late Edson Zvobgo. 

Still, Speaker Mudenda is wrong to blame Zimbabwe’s bad policies and failed governance on the country’s poor educated councillors and MPs. If the truth must be said, Zimbabwe has always had a generous number of very well educated MPs, Ministers, VPs right up to the President. Why have the well educated leaders to stop the rot?  

Indeed, if anything, the well educated were the source of the rot! It was Professor Jonathan Moyo with his PhD and professorship and Robert Mugabe with his seven University degrees, etc. who formulated the plans and strategies to establish and retain the de facto Zanu PF one-party dictatorship. They then roped in the brain-dead Mnangagwa (he is not the only who is brain dead to hold a University Degree), Chiwenga, etc. to do the dirty work of implementing the plans. 

Mugabe went the extra mile to surround himself with the mentally challenged whilst frustrating those with a working brain and hence the reason he appointed the like of Simon Muzenda, Joice Mujuru and Mnangagwa as VP whilst people like Zvobgo were appointed minister without portfolio. 

Whilst the uneducated leaders joined in the looting of the nation’s wealth they often lack the sophistication to steal much compared to the educated leaders. Jacob Mudande knows exactly what I am talking about. Of the people convicted of wrong doing in the Willowvale Motor Scandal, for example, most of those who went to town on the looting, like Speaker Mudenda himself, were very well educated! 

What we need above all else to guarantee sound policies and good governance is to make sure there is freedom of expression, free media, free debate, democratic competition  and free, fair and credible elections. It is nonsensical to blame the electorate for the current mediocre leaders when it is Zanu PF that has imposed these leaders on the nation by routinely rigging elections! 

Other than the few seats Zanu PF gives away to the opposition to entice them to participate in the elections regardless how flawed and illegal, one has to be a Zanu PF thugs to hold public office in Zimbabwe. You, Mr Hungwe, you are not a Zanu PF thug so you will never hold public office as long as Zimbabwe remains a de facto one party dictatorship. 

Besides, you are not Zanu PF material. You earned your educational qualification through honest hard work, none of the three months for PhD, and, worst of all, you have reputation as a professional journalist - those are qualities everyone in Zanu PF (and the opposition) despise. With that, you will be lucky to be elected a Zanu PF committee member at cell level; forget the much coveted position of rural councillor much less MP! No chance!