By Sibanengi Dube
The Zanu PF administration missed an excellent opportunity to understand and attend to pertinent issues being raised by citizens. One would have expected the Emmerson Mnangagwa led government to invite citizens for meetings with the view to appreciate their candid concerns and correct whatever is annoying the majority of Zimbabweans.
Instead the quasi-military government responded by abducting, arresting and rubbishing citizens that are raising such legitimate anxieties. How is it illegal to be hungry? What Zimbabweans are asking from their government is very consistent with common sense and normalcy.
As to how this government is missing it, is mind boggling. Is the government deliberately ignoring such naked concerns or is simply not getting it? Varikumborashika papi?
Zimbabweans across the political divides are merely asking government leaders to immediately stop looting state coffers and start diverting resources towards the benefits of all citizens. How is this wrong? The response is just as stupid as stitching up the ass in an effort to get rid of diarrhea.
One of the abductees Hopewell Chin’ono, a journalist went to the extent of publicly providing evidence of corruption in the Ministry of Health which even led to the arrest and firing of Health Minister Obadiah Moyo. So what is the rationale of fighting a citizen who is fighting against corruption for the greater good of the nation?
ED missed an excellent opportunity to join hands with Chin’ono in getting rid of corruption. This would have put paid to his song of fighting corruption. Instead of declaring Chin’ono a hero ED condemned him as a criminal by arresting him over spurious charges of inviting the citizens to overthrow the government.
Come on ED! Do these people who are superintending over Zimbabwe ever invest even a second of their time in taking stock of their actions. What sin has Zimbabweans committed to deserve leaders like Matemadanda and Ngwena?
Known characters who looted millions meant to fight COVID 19 infections were never subjected to abductions. Identified individuals who raided a government owned bank, CBZ, have never been taken to any police station. Grand scale looters of agriculture mechanization implements which were bankrolled by the RBZ are peacefully enjoying their loot.
But a mere journalist’s house was turned upside down by police as if they were searching for weapons of mass destruction. His only sin was to expose corruption in government. This is what every Zimbabwean is against. This is what everyone is prepared to match against on 31 July.
How is this not in order? Is this not a good reason for all Zimbabweans to march with the hope to sink their concerns in the heads of those in power? One would have expected ED, Mangwana and everyone within the ranks and files of Zanu PF claiming to be fighting corruption to join the march.
One of the organisers of the impending protest, Jacob Ngarivhume is also under lock and key for going public about his intention to lead a protest against corruption. Ngarivhume stated clearly what the national protest was about, but the Government spokesman Nick Mangwana, is interpreting it as attempts to overthrow the government.
Mangwana could have done Zimbabweans a favour by directly answering to corruption issues being raised by Ngarivhume instead of taking the nation off the topic by plummeting into a fiction.
Zimbabweans are literally informing their government that they are starving and failing to breathe. How can this be interpreted as overthrowing the government? Since when has starvation become synonymous with an insurrection?
The large scale effort by the government to arrest citizens who are vocal about their destiny and welfare could be better utilised in arresting the rampant corruption, starvation and unemployment. The scale at which Zanu PF is arresting MDC A youths far exceeds the apartheid system’s oppressive response to the June 16 uprising of SA students.
The youthful members of the society who shall be fighting for their future on 31 July are being targeted. Scores of them are being held in police cells dotted around Zimbabwe. These are the undisputed actions of a government that is at war with citizens.
ED has stepped up hostilities against citizens as 31 July draws to a near in an effort to beat the nation into submission. Homes of leaders of workers’ unions are being broken into, whilst their families were being harassed.
The regime is desperately looking for Zengeza MP Job Sikhala who went into hiding. Members of the dreaded CIO attempted to abduct his wife on Sunday in an effort to coerce him to surrender himself to the police.
A few powerful individuals and their families can’t be feasting everyday while the whole nation is being forced into involuntary fasting. The same individuals who are either related or connected to the first family can’t be shuffling and flashing the green buck while everyone is sentenced to poverty through RTGS snares which are not even worth the papers they are printed on.
Zimbabwe belongs to all Zimbabweans; other people can’t be allowed to be more zimbabwean than other Zimbabweans. Even hyenas won’t hesitate to take on a lion which usurps their prey. Zimbabweans are only clamouring for equal distribution of national resources. Can this be equated to overthrowing a government?
Sibanengi Dube is a Zimbabwean journalist based in South Africa
