Mugabe has chance for dignified exit

Mugabe has chance for dignified exit

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By Jethro Mpofu

“WHEN a man must fall”, the Nigerians say, “he must fall where his pieces can be picked up.”

This Nigerian piece of wisdom is pregnant with poignant lessons for President Robert Mugabe vis-a-vis the troubled Zimbabwean economic and political condition that is a pricky thorn in the global flesh.

The naked truth is that President Mugabe is a tired man. It is also true that he is a worried man. Even truer is the fact that as Enos Nkala, a former friend of his once said, he is “a terrified man.”

There is a whole world of Gukurahundi wounds, mass graves, and angry survivors behind the President. There is an economy in an advanced stage of decomposition. Victims of Murambatsvina, a poorly paid civil service community, making a nation specifically hungry for political and economic change.

The President of Zimbabwe through his own political miscalculations and economic blunders is between a rock and a hard place. The president is also a sorry victim of lies and flattery. His apologists have lied to him, they have compared him to Jesus the son of God. They have misled him. They have told him that if he leaves office Zimbabwe will die, hence, the president mistakenly believes that his continued stay as the President of Zimbabwe, let alone the leader of Zanu PF is patriotic service to Zimbabwe, when infact the opposite is true.

I seek, in this short contribution to forward an argument that Mugabe and his few but powerful backers still have a chance to abandon any ambitions and intentions for a life presidency for Mugabe and save Zimbabwe a lot of disorder and unnecessary suffering. Even more importantly, they can still save Mugabe himself the embarrassment and the very bitter inconvenience of the consequences of over stretching the patience of the stoic Zimbabweans. And maybe, by a very miraculous possibility, maybe, Mugabe will still be afforded that respect which is afforded a repentant and apologetic former dictator.

It is clear to everyone that a big part of the reason why Mugabe is not willing to leave office that easily and normally is his strong wish to cling to the legal immunity from prosecution that goes with the office of the president in a country like Zimbabwe. Also, the few but powerful backers that Mugabe still retains are people who share with him the guilt of such grave human rights offences like Gukurahundi genocide among many others. At the end of the day, Zimbabweans are at the mercy of a club of guilty human rights abuse perpetrators who will do all they can to escape prosecution and all other consequences that follow those who have murdered, stolen and massacred in todays’ world.

Enos Nkala a close ally of Mugabe during the Gukurahundi genocide period, recently and also ironically accused Zimbabweans of cowardice for failing to stand up to Mugabe’s dictatorship. Nkala literally shouted at the patient and enduring Zimbabwean population for being sheepish and docile in the face of rabid abuse by the Mugabe regime. Nkala ended his shouting by announcing that he is writing a tell-all-book that he prefers will be published only when he is “gone.”

This really confirms that Enos himself is a true Zimbabwean, a coward who prefers that his disclosures about Gukurahundi be published only when he is safe in the comfort and immunity of his grave. Anyway, Enos Nkala’s wish to have the truth told when he is dead tells us a lot about the behaviour and intentions of all perpetrators of Gukurahundi that he was working with. They are doing everything possible, pulling all constitutional strings and political machinations to buy time until they die, so that they escape justice. Zimbabweans are indeed in the hands of the proverbial guilty who flee when no-one persues, or those who flee when no-one has started pursuing.

In light of this, it is not only ordinary Zimbabweans who need to be liberated from the yoke of their oppressers and abusers. It is not only ordinary Zimbabweans who are troubled and worried. It is clear. The troublers of Zimbabwe, those who have turned a golden economy into a coal economy, those who have murdered and plundered need to be liberated from their unfortunate condition and position.

In fact, Frantz Fanon, in his useful book, “The Wretched of the Earth” actually stated it that when the oppressed free themselves from their position of the oppressed, they also free the oppressors from their position of being oppressors. In short, Zimbabweans of all shreds in the opposition and within the ruling Zanu PF must help Mugabe and his regime to retire, otherwise to expect them to free themselves and to negotiate themselves out of power is to expect the impossible. It is as good as to expect, as the Nigerians say, “a mouth to eat itself.”

What is even more depressing and unfortunate is the fact that everyone in Zanu PF now ordinarily stands accused of bringing Zimbabwe down economically and otherwise. Yet , in reality, whether we like it or not, there are men and women in Zanu PF who do not only wish Zimbabwe well, but have been and are willing to join hands with all the others, in the opposition and beyond who will in word and indeed save Zimbabwe from Mugabeism and its backers. In fact, Enos Nkala, actually disclosed recently that Mugabe does not run Zimbabwe through Zanu PF structures of the central committee, the politburo or any organ, but, he said, Mugabe works with a secret “Zezuru group” called the “group of 26.”

A tribal Ku Klax Klan clique whose intention is to sustain and ensure Zezuru rulership and dominance in Zimbabwe's economic and political affairs. What this means is that some men and women in Zanu PF have been and are still following blindly as Mugabe and his G26 pursue their interests, interests which are not necessarily Zimbabwean. So, in truth all sons and daughters of Zimbabwe have a role to play in the new liberation struggle of recovering Zimbabwe from Mugabeists.

It is my humble prayer that in one of these Zimbabwean days, Zimbabweans in the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC, Zimbabweans in the Mutambara-led MDC, Zimbabweans in the UPM, in the UPP, in the DP and other political gatherings will realise that they have that historical job to do. To unite with all other Zimbabweans, including a revolutionary remnant from Zanu PF and come up with a no-nonsense pro-Zimbabwe motion that will once again restore Zimbabwe to the international community, put Mugabeism to rest and start the task of building Zimbabwe.

Organisations like the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), Women of Zimbabwe Arise, Christian Alliance, Zimbabwe National Students Union, Progressive Teachers Union, Bulawayo Dialogue, Bulawayo Agenda and many other platforms of struggle in Zimbabwe must be aware that this is the time for a revolutionary conspiracy in Zimbabwe, where all forces must join hands in a motion that will usher in a new political, economic and constitutional order in Zimbabwe.

Jethro Mpofu is a former University of Zimbabwe students leader and political activist, he writes from Bulawayo. Contact him at: Zululizayo@yahoo.com

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