The true State of the Nation: if the President truly loved Zimbabwe

By Tinomudaishe Chinyoka

The President of the Republic, His Highness King Robert Ebagum the First, delivered his annual State of the Nation address in an uninspiring half an hour which must have caused several yawns to those that were required to attend.

We learned a few things from the address, about the most relevant of which is probably that Cde King  Ebagum is, contrary to anticipated belief, not dead.

Now, I do not know about most people, but I think that the best qualification for President of a country cannot be the mere fact that one is not dead.

I would submit that one needs to be alive, honest and capable, with a genuine love for the country. And an honest president that loves our country would not have given such a disjointed and uninspiring speech and call it a State of the Nation address.

Back when I was in school, bluffing and faffing my way through high school mathematics and barely making a mark with my attempts at Pathogen-theorems (or was that Pythagoras), I actually felt good about pulling it off with my 56% mark and then making up ground on my competitors in the more familiar territories of English Literature and RE (that is religious education for you).

What I never realised then, but see now, is that aside from what you learn in books, faffing about is in itself required learning, for those moments when, as President of a whole republic, you are called about to talk about the state of the nation and you must say something, as long as it is not the honest truth.

Because there are times when the true state of the nation requires that you say things against your interest, and if you happen to be of the dishonest persuasion then that can be tough. “The state of the nation is that I as your president and my government have failed you, and that as a direct consequence of this the country is on its knees.

The true state of the nation is that the economy is looking up: as in, it lays flat on its back with no rescue or recovery in sight but, it’s eyes are facing upwards. The true state of the nation is that we are in trouble, and if we could afford it, we would all run for the hills. The true state of the nation is that this prodigious land that we all love very much has gone to the dogs, but that some dogs will not even touch it.”

That is what a president who is not faffing about would say. But we do not have that breed of leadership. Instead, we have one that talks about ZimAsset and who praises its indigenisation (read nepotistic enrichment of the elite) policies that have scared off investment.

We have a leader that speaks of creating a skilled workforce when we have exported people like Strive Masiyiwa, Noah Manyika, Arthur Mutambara, Lucien Msamati, Tawanda Mutasah, Paul Rumema Chimhosva, to shores far and wide, there to make those lands rich with their skill-sets while our nation gawks with envy and fails to regret that it has become the proverbial huku yakadhla mazai ayo.

Hell we even exported Leroy Gopal, that boy that acted in Yellow Card! Our doctors run the healthcare system of Namibia, and punch above their weight in South Africa and Botswana. Our nurses man hospitals in the UK and Australia, with only their professionalism preventing whole shifts from holding team meetings in Shona and Ndebele.

The true state of the nation is not that “Government has imported 300 000 metric tonnes of maize..the private sector has imported 25 000 metric tonnes.”  Rather, it is that a nation that used to export maize finds itself reliant on imports.

The true state of the nation is that decades after independence, with water not less than they have in Israel, we still rely on rain to grow our maize, and have made no investments in irrigation or the building of canal systems.

The true state of the nation is that our agriculture planning involves warning people of El Nino in the same manner that a n’anga would tell a family about kuuya kwengozi, and have devised no formula to insulate our crop production from El Nino’s cyclical effects.

The true state of the nation is that while we import maize, it is our farmers that make Malawi tobacco the envy of Brazil. The true state of the nation is that if we were to import maize from Zambia, it will most likely come from the hands of an expelled Zimbabwe farmer. Create a skilled workforce? No, we have scared away our skilled workforce. That is the true state of our nation.

King Ebagum the First tells the nation that ”In 2015 milk production reached only 58 million litres against the national demand of 120 million litres…”  and fails to say why. That is what happens when you faff about and think that anyone can wake up and become both First Lady and a dairy farmer.

The true state of the nation is that we are the country where our Reserve Bank governor retired and started rearing chickens instead of investing in capital intensive pursuits like dairy farming. Only bringing this up because that time in 2007-2008 when we woke to be told kuti mari kubank hakuchina it must have gone somewhere surely, money does not just disappear like breath in the wind.  

According to Ebagum the First, we must be pleased that “Tourism continues to experience tremendous growth and development, first half of 2016 saw 902 435 tourist arrivals, receiving a significant increase from Asia and America, average room occupancy has marginally increased from 41 percent to 42 percent and we expect to receive 2,5 million tourists by year end. The peace and tranquility we enjoy as a country positively contributes to the success we enjoy in tourism,”  

No Sir. Where is the tremendous growth? Our 6 months tourism numbers might look large(ish) but they are not. And when you consider that this number includes Zimbabweans that are now travelling on foreign passports coming home to visit family, the figures are downright pathetic. This is not tourism; this is kudzoka kumusha kubva kwatiri kutema ugariri kuti tihochemana nhamo.

The total number of tourists is not a number to shout out about, but rather one to almost be embarrassed with, if we had honest leadership. In 2014, the Dubai Mall received 80 000 000 visitors, none of whom were going ‘home’ to visit their birth places but were genuine tourists, including King Ebagum’s entourage armed with $300+ per day per diems and a penchant for shopping.

Eighty million, visiting a shopping mall where they do not have such great tourist attractions like Mosi-ya-Tunya, Great Zimbabwe, Hwange National Park, Mana Pools, Matusadona, Chinhoyi Caves, Lake Kariba, Wolfshall Pass (Boterekwa), and the world’s oldest serving President.

They have a target of 100 000 000 in 2020, but might get there before then. And what do we have? A carnival in Harare, dreamed up by……whom? The true state of the nation is that our tourism figures are embarrassing, and that if we had any shame, we would just not bother talking about them.

The true state of the nation is not that “Government is concerned about the high levels of gender based violence particularly against women and girls, ZRP and the courts have collaborated in creating victim friendly systems which are determined to fight gender based violence..” Instead, the true state of the nation is that we have created conditions that have damaged the social fabric of society so much that people are barely coping, let alone holding together as families.

We have created systems that allowed Munyaradzi Kereke to not only happen, but to be shielded away from the reach of the law by high levels of state power, and when he was convicted through a private prosecution that was resisted by the state, did not have the social and institutional capacity to look back to Tomana and say, “how now is your position not untenable?” That Tomana only got in trouble over bail for alleged dairy farm bombers (they must not like us to have milk) and not for this spectacular failure speaks a lot to why we will not win the fight against misogyny and sexism in our nation.

The true state of the nation is that when we have stories about girls prostituting themselves for a plate of sadza, when we have underage girls being exploited by people with money and power, when we have corrupt policemen who will detain or free perpetrators based on who might pay, then we as a nation cannot speak of targeting gender based violence.

We have institutionalised misogyny, (remember “I cannot be opposed by a mere woman”?) and cosmetic efforts at addressing these might do well to get some donor money but they will not address the problem.  

The true state of the nation is that we are the country whose courts are led by judges that will persecute able female judges based on the mere fact yekuti akarambwa, and which insist that rape victims should describe what happened to them in crude vernacular terms that even husbands and wives cannot say to each other, using mostly male interpreters.

The true state of the nation is not that “Government is working on increasing local power generation…” because let us be honest, that is not what we are doing. The true state of the nation is that we have given an uneconomic contract to sell electricity to ZESA to a brother to the President’s son in law, and that we have turned around and paid him above market prices for said power.

And the true state of the nation is that he is not generating power, but buying from sources we could have approached directly and bought from at a fraction of what we are paying. The true state of the nation is that all out power stations operate at below capacity, and yet we have allowed our trained engineers to go and work on power generating in Manitoba, the North Sea, Tajikistan and Tasmania.

The true state of the nation is not that “in order to promote human capital development Government has begun implementing the Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programme which has seen 5 000 students enroll to study A Level Mathematics and any two science subjects aimed at developing STEM skills to help industrialisation and modernisation,” but that when it suited our internal ruling party power struggles, we have hobbled and incapacitated the Minister pushing this agenda with allegations of stealing, which allegations remain unproven but are being allowed to take all his time.

The true state of the nation is that we have a Psychomotor Ministry that no-one can say what it does, besides employing Cde Hungwe, who we all thought was dead until he showed up and boasted about stealing the 2018 elections.  Not a typo, yes, 2018.

The true state of the nation is not that “Zimbabwe made history and left a permanent mark on both regional and continental levels following our chairing of both Sadc and African Union…” but rather that after spending a lot of our scarce resources on these ceremonial roles, we have nothing to show for it. The true state of the nation is that we did not get value for money as a result of these assignments, and should shy away from taking them up ever again.

When closing the state of the nation address, it is correct that our President should “conclude by paying tribute to our peace loving people who have endured all manner of hardships” but it is also patently false that this has anything to do with “our land reform programme…”

The true state of the nation is that our people have endured hardships because of a government that has failed in its first and basic duty: to serve. A government that has consistently and persistently failed in its job and which ought to be recalled and removed.  Only that we cannot remove them, as they have the power to win all elections including ones that they lose.

Because you see, the true state of the nation is that we steal elections in advance. Like Cde Hungwe said, the true state of the nation is that if Zanu PF loses in 2018, “we can go to war. We can hire the army….our soldiers can come to help us. We will never allow opposition parties to rule this country. We are going to have President Mugabe as our candidate in 2018 and his predecessors (sic) must have war credentials….this is very biblical because it started in the bible where the army was being hired to defend the King. In our case, President Mugabe is our King hence the need to use soldiers to defend him and his party.” (Now you get why some of us refer to him as King Ebagum the First? Kutotsvaka dzvene, get with the programme, hauzivi chakakodza mhembwe.)

Leaving aside the insignificant fact that a minister does not know the difference between predecessors and successors, (he must not be in touch with his psychomotor functions!)  the true state of the nation is that when Hungwe said this, we as a nation made some jokes about his Psychomotor Ministry and carried on suffering and faffing about.

The true state of the nation is that 36 years after we were afflicted by the virus that is King Ebagum the First, there is not a cure in sight. The true state of the nation is that our economy is dead, our democracy is dead, and our identity as a people is dead. But, one piece of good news: our President is not dead.  Long live the King.

Sad. But hey, it will soon be Christmas, and many tourists will return (sorry visit) to Zimbabwe to spend it with family and friends. Safe driving anyone, we might be dead already but no need to make it official. No faffing about with alcohol and then driving, mind?

Tinomudaishe Chinyoka is a UK based lawyer and a prominent former student leader at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ).