I do not hate Professor Ncube or his party

Dear Editor

In one of his recent opinion pieces, MDC-Ncube’s Youth Secretary-General, Discent Collins Bajila writes about my “hatred for MDC President Welshman Ncube”.

In a response to one of my recent opinion pieces, Professor Ncube also thought I had “an obsession” with his person and his party.

But the truth is that I neither have an obsession for either Professor Ncube or the party that he leads nor hate the same. Why I keep on writing about them is because more often than not, they are too defensive when they are criticized, prompting me to justify my original position.

Not only are they defensive, but, both Professor Ncube and his supporters use language which is extreme in their responses. They have called me all sorts of names, they have threatened me, and they have called me a liar.

Not too long ago Professor Ncube used language which I did not expect from a presidential aspirant, when he shouted at one Nominate White who had given an opinion which was not in his line of thinking on a facebook discussion “Don’t be silly!”.

When an aspiring president shouts at people like that, some of us a prompted to react.

On the contrary, I have enjoyed very civilised debate with Dr. Simba Makoni. He is just professional, at least in my discussions with him. Even where he doesn’t agree with me, he asks probing questions, and we end up agreeing in some things.

Interestingly, Professor Ncube and Bajila see lies only in statements made by those people opposed to them, and not the lies that are brewed by their colleagues within their own party.

In another recent facebook discussion, the farm mechanization programme was raised, and a participant asked if Professor Welshman Ncube and other top officials from their party who benefited from tractors and other agricultural inputs that were meant to benefit people who had acquired land under what the MDC called a chaotic land reform programme way back in the early 2000’s.

The party spokesperson, Nhanhla Dube, was very quick to deny that Professor Ncube had benefited from the programme, but instead said it was Abednico Bhebhe who had benefited, an allegation which Bhebhe has since denied.

But what was the whole point of bringing in Abednico Bhebhe into a discussion in which the question raised had been whether it was appropriate for Professor Ncube and the several other officials to obtain inputs from a programme meant to benefit people who had obtained land under the land reform programme when they had not, or have they?

To my knowledge, Professor Ncube has denied benefiting from the land reform programme, and I believe he didn’t. The question then becomes, principled as he is, or as he claims to be, why did he deep his hand into that programme meant to benefit people who had obtained land from the land reform programme.

Is he an opportunist who jumps at any opportunity that presents itself?

Sources privy to the happenings at that time, which could be wrong, even say he was personally responsible for signing recommendation forms/letters for all MDC-Mutambara officials who obtained tractors under that programme – most of them senior officials.

To prove myself to Nhlanhla Dube that I was not creating a story to tarnish Professor Ncube, I obtained the link to the article which reported the MDC-Mutambara beneficiaries of the farm mechanization programme, which gave the names of the officials and the registration number of the tractors they obtained.

I shared it on the same facebook wall, only to be accused again by Nhlanhla for publicizing the serial number of Professor Ncube’s tractor, even though it had been in the public domain and everyone who had read the article would have known.

That only proves how confused some of our aspiring parliamentarians. First they deny things when they think there is no evidence, and then when the evidence is provided, they defend, no matter how inappropriate the act is, and cry foul when they cannot sustain their arguments.

My question to Professor Ncube and Bajila is, who between Benjamin Chitate and the MDC Spokesperson is a liar?

When the national spokesperson of a political party that is hoping to form the next government goes about fabricating stories, as he recently did when he posted a message on a facebook wall that MDC-T is against devolution, when all along the MDC-T had been propagating for devolution, one is justified to say that that party’s election campaign is laced through and through with lies.

They need to be reminded that support that is achieved through lies can dry up before the actual election takes place as people with more accurate information reach the electorate and tell the people the truth.

And finally to Professor Ncube, the more you think what I write is “foolish rubbish” as he said to me in an email of 16 April 2013, the more I will want to write about you and your party to prove my point.

I don’t mind if the entire party machinery is unleashed on me, I have the energy and the facts to defend my opinion pieces.

Benjamin Chitate, New Zealand