It is quite unfortunate that former President Robert Mugabe, who resigned last week, is a man who will not be fondly remembered by history.
By Learnmore Zuze
The world and Zimbabwe in particular has been gripped in the euphoria of the circumstances that led to Mugabe’s ouster, but very few have stopped to ask how Mugabe ended up in his unenviable yet long-coming situation. It was in the making of years.
Mugabe was not born with a sense of ownership for this country; he was a mere junior who joined the liberation struggle long after others had been in the trenches.
He was hardly the colossal and immovable mountain that he had become during his forgettable rule. The late former Vice-President Joshua Nkomo even recounts in his autobiography (Story of My Life) that so junior was Mugabe that, on a number of occasions during the struggle, founding presidents like Samora Machel and Kenneth Kaunda had turned down dialogue with him insisting on speaking to his seniors.
So how did Mugabe become the untouchable that he had become? What worsened his arrogance and gave him a sense of entitlement to a country with 13 million people? To this, there can be no secret; there is an evil, an evil so rampant and ruinous that if left unchecked can, with equal force, grip the current establishment namely, the creation of a god out of a man.
Zanu PF and a mass of bootlickers created Mugabe the god. They intoxicated Mugabe and ultimately Grace with power. The bootlicking crusade began in the 1980s with the creation of both party and national Constitution that gave Mugabe an octopus power grip. Eddison Zvobgo has been largely blamed for this.
While sycophants had enjoyed the perks that came with bootlicking, they also struggled along everybody else to remove the creature they had created. No one could have overpowered this all-powerful creature save for the army.
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It is imperative, fellow Zimbabweans, that we all understand that the President is a man or woman chosen among us. He is human with weaknesses too. He should be a servant and not a master of the people. Mugabe, the irremovable dictator, was created by such irresponsible bootlicking as “Mugabe is like Cremora”. Mugabe the demigod emerged from such reckless utterances attributing him to the revered angel, Gabriel. Dear Zimbabweans, please let’s stop forthwith this evil practice.
There are no parallels at all between a mortal man and Jesus Christ.
There is no point in grown-up ministers insulting their biological parents by wishing they had been fathered by Mugabe. This worship syndrome had gripped, not only politicians like Webster Shamu, Kudzai Chipanga and Psychology Maziwisa. It permeated through society, even faded motivation speaker, Milton Kamwendo, wrote a laughable article in a State weekly desperately trying to derive qualities of good leadership from Mugabe. Really!
Such sycophantism should never again be allowed. The disease did not spare churches, mostly apostolic and pentecostal, as they all ascribed deity status to Mugabe.
Grace even had the temerity to view herself as the new medium of Mbuya Nehanda. I, in all seriousness, implore President Emmerson Mnangagwa to shun bootlickers for efficient execution of duties. Bootlickers care nothing about development. They simply wish to advance their own selfish ends. This evil must fall. If anything, leaders must be made to account.
Mugabe last week was celebrated wildly in the same manner as he was celebrated in 1980, but this time the jubilation erupted from his departure and not from his coming-in. It should have been heartbreaking for a man who supposedly had been filling stadiums with thousands at interface rallies.
When history is written, there is no doubt that Mugabe’s downfall will be stated as a direct consequence of his failure to rein in his loquacious wife despite repeated warnings. Grace precipitated the epic fall of Mugabe and, in a sense, ameliorated the suffering of Zimbabweans.
Mugabe’s rule was painful in that the man had honed the art of appearing a fighter for the African cause while he left a burning house in his own home.
It is actually mythical that Mugabe was a leader of the people since 1980; there is virtually nothing that can be credited to his rule as he simply rode on the institutions left by the colonial government.
The infrastructure we see, whether magistrates’ courts, referral hospitals like Parirenyatwa and schools, was established before independence. Some would like to attribute the levels of education to him, but in reality there is little that can be said in real value terms that the man contributed.
Mugabe had truly become a liability, not only to Zimbabwe, but to his fellow African leaders and the world at large. His rule had become an embarrassment of gigantic proportions. In short, Mugabe presided over people and over a party that prayed for his demise every minute.
It was nothing, but fear that kept Mugabe in power. How else does one explain that a man who had filled stadiums only two weeks ago would have 10 out of 10 of his party provinces rabidly rejecting him? No one could successfully advise him or his wife. Everyone grinned and clapped hands in feigned ululation as Grace cut through grown-up men in her brainless rants cheered by a group of ambitious young men.
Both husband and wife had no horse sense to realise they were living in a sea of disgruntlement, with Grace even challenging the military to shoot him. My word!
Hero worshipping of politicians must fall.
Learnmore Zuze is a law officer and writes in his own capacity. E-mail: [email protected]
