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NewsDay

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Where art thou Cde Mugabe?

Opinion & Analysis
FOR the first time this year, President Robert Mugabe has stayed in Zimbabwe for a period straddling two consecutive weeks.

FOR the first time this year, President Robert Mugabe has stayed in Zimbabwe for a period straddling two consecutive weeks.

Comment: NewsDay Editor

President Robert Mugabe
President Robert Mugabe

We have collectively shown our disdain at the President’s continued trips to other African countries or overseas for at times what appears missions inconsequential to our cause.

We have demanded that he stays at home and focus on finding solutions to the economic problems bedevilling the nation, that he comes home to begin the business of resuscitating our industry, creating jobs and seeking funds to patch our pot-holed roads.

That the President stays at home and deals with rampant corruption pervading the nation. But now that he is home, we do not feel his presence at all. The President has literally gone AWOL. We appear to be an orphaned nation.

It should have counted for something that Mugabe is around, but our leader may have lost that pervasive presence that was his hallmark in the early years of independence.

The aura that followed Mugabe over the decades is gone. His party, Zanu PF, is literally at war with itself, threatening to self-immolate, not necessarily for the benefit of Zimbabweans.

It is not news anymore to dwell on the country’s economic, social and political problems. We must be talking about solutions, but where are they?

Zanu PF, as the party that won parliamentary elections in 2013 with a crushing majority, is supposed to show the way, but the former guerrilla movement is nowhere to be seen.

A father can be present at home with the family, but in actual fact, exhibiting a passiveness that would be as good as he is absent.

This is the situation that Zimbabweans now find themselves in — with a President who is in power, but clueless as to what is to be done.

His acolytes in government are none the wiser and, instead, they are consumed with a fictitious power struggle, while Mugabe dilly-dallies.

Surely, the world must be laughing at us. Demanding solutions to 21st century problems from someone born at the turn of the 20th century? Really!

But do we even have a choice?

This is the man who has presented himself as our ultimate saviour for close to 40 years and in 2013 bludgeoned his way to “victory” on a campaign promise to create 2,2 million jobs and re-invigorate our industry.

Four years down the line, there are no jobs except an opening conveniently created for his son-in-law at the helm of Air Zimbabwe. And Mugabe actually wants another term next year when he is set to contest for the presidency at 94!

Now the hope is by some miracle he would have waved a magic wand to create 2 199 999 jobs by the second half of next year.

It is none but ourselves. Mugabe must not only show his face, but must be felt.

Where art thou Cde Mugabe?