THERE is a highly-regarded principle of systematic development that has been handed down from generations in the world of personal and organisational advancement. The principle relates to the distinction between important versus urgent things. A person who is not organised, for instance, makes limited progress because they spend the bulk of their time attending to urgent things only. By urgent things are meant those things that pop up without warning; things that demand immediate attention and action when they occur. An urgent thing brings every other business to a halt; it gobbles time meant for other activities and is often costly when it strikes. On the other extreme, important things differ in that they are not immediately urgent, but they are critical and need to be attended to constantly; they require daily cultivation and are fruitful, bringing high returns in the future. However, the cumulative effect of neglecting important things at the expense of urgent things is cataclysmic. Important things are an offspring of careful planning and a meticulous thought-process. When important things are left to grow moulds, the crashing impact is felt in a single earth-shuttering incident. And this aptly captures the gut-wrenching incident in which a Form Four pupil, Jocelyn Gomba and 35-year-old Odwell Mabanga lost their lives last week after being run over and dragged to death by a commuter omnibus at the illegal pick-up point at the corner of Park Lane and Leopold Takawira Street. The young girl from Harare Girls High School met a painful death. It was reported that the driver drove for a considerable distance with her trapped underneath. Mabanga, who had initially sustained spinal injuries, died at Parirenyatwa Hospital. It was a needless loss of lives. These deaths could have been prevented well in advance if authorities had embraced important things instead of being reactionary, as we are seeing now.
Learnmore Zuze
The illegal pick-up point right at the entrance of Harare Girls High School was an apparent disaster waiting to happen. The place is the opening to a high school and a pick-up point for marauding kombis and that, on its own, spells doom. This is not to mention the uncouth language and boisterous ways of the touts, which pupils and teachers have to contend with on a daily basis. What further rubs in salt to a profusely bleeding wound is that the victim, Jocelyn Gomba, for instance, becomes the fourth person from the school to meet such a fate. Surely, with meticulous planning and embracing the concept of important things, this menace should long have been dealt with. It was too obvious that lives would be lost at this “death trap.” Any alert person saw it coming.
It was reported that police spokesperson, Chief Superintendent Paul Nyathi discovered, after questioning the kombi owner, that his driver Wadzanayi Mabika had only obtained his driving licence in 2015 and did not have the mandatory five years’ experience as required by the Road Traffic Act. We heard the city’s acting corporate communications manager, Michael Chideme, saying the city would force the kombis back to Market Square, where they are designated to operate from.
Now, with all due respect, it is clear and quite unfortunate too that we have to wait for tragedy to strike before being cajoled into action; our authorities have not embraced the principle of attending to important things. They would rather busy themselves with fire fighting. Now that two precious lives have been lost, we start to hear talk of declaring war on the kombi menace at the school entrance. The hazard had been there all this while, but only assumes importance when tragedy strikes. Now that parents have lost an irreplaceable daughter, we reactively start attending to a disaster that was in the making for long. Now that a bread winner is gone, we begin to make noise. It’s sad, sad indeed. Without proper planning and a prioritisation of important things over urgent things, these disasters will always be part of our everyday life.
Surely, if there had been appropriate prioritisation, such incidents would never occur. All too often, no one takes notice. Even as things stand, one would be angered to know that its business as usual at the illegal pick-up point; pupils and teachers continue to be abused by the intoxicated touts. The kombis continue, forebodingly, to be driven on the sidewalks without regard to pedestrians. To the police and the city council, It’s time to walk the talk and not simply talk the walk while innocent souls perish. One only needs to take a stroll in the central business district (CBD) to come across live Zesa cables that are not insulated protruding from the ground and from poles. This, again, is death waiting for its next victim and we will hear that Zesa will be ‘declaring war’ on all protruding wire cables in the city when lives have been lost. Even more, there are buildings that are well past the prescribed life span and authorities are waiting for tragedy to strike before they act.
Why, honestly, do we have to wait for deaths to occur? Important things must never be at the mercy of urgent things. l Learnmore Zuze writes in his own capacity. Email: [email protected]
