I have borrowed the title for this week’s piece from the late Alex Tawanda Magaisa, a friend, colleague and former workmate in the then Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Office.
In one of his epic pieces that I consider to have been his best, that was titled When Mad Mamvura drove the bus, published under his famous Big Saturday Read (BSR) series, the late Magaisa told us a fascinating story of a mad man who once drove a bus that had been left idling at Sadza growth point in the Njanja area of Wedza. The bus the mad man drove away was laden with both goods and passengers.
In his trademark graphic illustration, Magaisa told us the harrowing and heart-rending story of how the mad man, a vagabond at a local growth point, drove a bus and sent everyone around into delirium and serious panic.
Well before the incident, mad Mamvura, who survived through alms at the famous growth point, had been telling anyone who cared to listen that he would one day drive a bus.
As fate would have it, one day, as one of the drivers of a Buhera- -bound bus made a stop-over at Sadza growth point to afford his passengers the much-needed “recess” while he and his crew enjoyed their lunch, Mamvura, the mad man, sneaked into the bus the driver had left idling and drove away as bemused passengers on the bus cried and tried to scamper out for dear life.
Luckily, Mamvura was able to stop the bus before anyone got injured.
Magaisa concluded his seminal 2017 piece by warning the nation of a similar fate. He ominously warned that one day, a mad man might similarly drive this bus called Zimbabwe “ takati vavava ” (under our watch).
In my tribute to Magaisa at the City Sports Centre on 27 June 2022 following his untimely death in the United Kingdom, I told mourners that true to Alex’s prediction, Mnangagwa was the mad Mamvura who had somehow sneaked into the driver’s cabin and was now driving away this bus called Zimbabwe.
I told mourners at Magaisa’s funeral service that when it is in water, particularly muddy waters, the crocodile will be in its element. For one who calls himself Ngwena, the reptile to which water (mvura) is its element, Mamvura can only only be an apt sobriquet for Emmerson Ngwena Mnangagwa.
Indeed, we have since come to learn that Mamvura, the famed mad man, is alive and well. True to Alex’s prediction, Mamvura has now taken to the wheel of the national bus. He has since left the precincts of Sadza growth point and has carved out his own unique reputation as a lunatic of national fame.
Everyone now knows him because almost every day, he is donning a scarf embroidered with national colours around his neck. He wears the scarf daily regardless of the weather, including even in this scorching October heat.
And last week, it became clear that mad Mamvura was on the national wheel when he grabbed and allocated to himself the power to administer over a dozen Acts of parliament.
Barely two months after stealing an election, he scooped and arrogated under his direct charge and supervision a whopping 13 mandates that should ordinarily be administered by Cabinet Ministers, confirming his credentials as an unashamed autocrat.
Among others, the mandates Emmerson Mnangagwa aka Mamvura placed under his direct control included all issues to do with corruption as well as all matters related to the Mutapa Investment Fund, his chosen new avenue for looting and plundering State assets and resources. The idea behind the centralisation of all these Acts under the Presidency is obviously to loot and spirit away national wealth, far away from the public glare.
Indeed, in a significant move, ED has taken direct control of the following 13 Acts:
1. Anti-Corruption Commission Act [Chapter 9:22] (Act No. 13 of 2004)
2. Commissions of Inquiry Act [Chapter 10:07]
3. Emergency Powers Act [Chapter 11:04]
4. The Honours and Awards Act [Chapter 10:11]
5. Interception of Communications Act [Chapter 11:20] (No. 6 of 2007)
6. Prevention of Corruption Act [Chapter 9:16]
7. Presidential Pension and Retirement Benefits Act [Chapter 2:05]
8. Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act [Chapter 10:20]
9. Presidential Salary and Allowances Act [Chapter 2:06]
10. Radiation Protection Act [Chapter 15:15] (Act No. 5 of 2004)
11. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act [Chapter 22:20] (Act No. 7 of 2014)
12. Zimbabwe Independent Complaints Commission Act [Chapter 10:34] (No. 5 of 2022)
13. Zimbabwe National Security Council Act, 2023 (Act No. 1 of 2023)
The brazen action to centralise the administration of these 13 Acts by the Presidency signifies a significant consolidation of power, raising questions and animated bar and living room discussions about the implications of this mammoth shift in Zimbabwe’s governance structure.
Firstly, the number 13 is very significant in the realm of numerology. Not only is it an unlucky number as denoted by the misfortune associated with Friday the 13th, but numerology also tells us that the number 13 is a figure that denotes absolute power, in this case autocratic power.
It stands to reason that ED has now un-procedurally turned Zimbabwe into an undisputed monarchy, arrogating all power and authority directly to himself and indirectly to his family and filial assiciates.
The gazetting of Statutory Instrument 189 of 2023 Assignment of Functions (His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe) Notice 2023 which brought the administration of 13 Acts under the Presidency represents the unilateral and unConstitutional transition of the country Into a monarchy.
Under our watch, mad Mamvura is driving away the national bus from the main rank, laden with the national wealth and key national assets. There is no accountability whatsoever as our stark raving mad Mamvura belches away with Zimbabwe’s national treasures, leaving in his wake a billowing cloud of black smoke.
Surely, just how does one man seek to administer everything, including giving himself the mandate to deal with Corruption issues, which issues the Constitution had deliberately placed under an autonomous and independent organ called the Zimbabwe Anti- Corruption Commission? Is Mnangagwa not seeking to usurp the powers of an independent chapter 12 institution?
Given that the Gold Mafia documentary has exposed that Mnangagwa, and his family are at the epicentre of corruption and unmitigated sleaze in this country, how can the same man robustly deal with a felony to which he is the biggest culprit?
In short, how can a mosquito cure malaria?
But like Oliver Mtukudzi’s Chimusoro, Mnangagwa has sought to grab everything for himself:
“ _Kukambira kambira wanyanya
Kukambira kambira wanyanya
Chimusoro , wanyanya Chinusoro
Icho_ nechicho ndechangu
Aya neayo ndeangu ,
Apa nepapa ndepangu
Chimusoro , wanyaya Chimusoroo
He hee Chimusoro ”
(Oliver Mtukudzi’s lyrics).
The centralisation of power by Chimusoro/Mamvura is a serious breach of the Constitution and the attendant systems and procedures contained therein. The Constitution explicitly states that Zimbabwe respects and complies with democratic tenets.
ED’s personalisation of the administration of a key Act that deals with corruption, among many other Acts, means that the most corrupt person as exposed by the Gold Mafia scandal is now in charge of dealing with a vice for which he is the worst culprit.
Mnangagwa is the same man who is a documented international criminal and is cited in the UN report S/2002/1146 as having been the central man in the looting and plundering and looting of the diamonds in the DRC.
And now he tells us he has given himself powers to deal with corruption?
Among the 13 Acts he will now personally administer, our Mamvura has also allocated himself the responsibility to administer the Honours and Awards Act, which means he is now responsible for giving various Awards to the (un)deserving citizens of this country, which we only know he will give mostly to members of his family.
This is the same man who has done crazy things by allocating awards to his wife and children.
In August 2021, he awarded his wife what he called the Order of the Great Zimbabwe Gold Award. In August 2023, he again awarded Auxilia Mnangagwa with what he called the Jairos Jiri Humanitarian Gold Award .
In September 2023, he again gave her an honorary PhD.
Again in 2021 at Lupane University, where he is chancellor by virtue of him being President, Mnangagwa deliberately made sure there were no elections for president of the Students Representative Council. The Dean of Students at Lupane University,, one Honest Ncube, just announced to the students that ED’s son Kudakwashe David Mnangagwa was now the President of the Student Representative Council.
The same Kudakwashe David is now the country’s deputy Minister of Finance.
Now that our Mamvura has taken direct charge of conferment of the various merit awards, we now know most of them are likely to land in his own household.
The Interception of Communications Act, which ED will also now personally administer, has several mandates that ordinarily should be under the Ministry of ICT. But ED, a former spy chief himself in the 1980s wants to oversee espionage of telecommunications probably because he regards all intelligence maters as being under the Office of the President, in the process turning Zimbabwe into an avowed and a determined securocracy.
Mnangagwa also says he now oversees the Commissions of Inquiry Act. The problem arises in cases where the President himself ought to be the subject of inquiry for crimes of omission and Commission or for failing to implement the recommendations of his own Commission of Inquiry, as he did with the Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry.
It should be noted that the President is sometimes an interested party in some of these Inquiries and he cannot be allowed to superintend over them, as he has now done under this sinister grab-all move.
Even before his latest move, we already had a problem pertaining to the Commissions of Inquiry Act. For example, the Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry found the security services to have been directly responsible for the violence and murders of innocent citizens on August 1, 2018. Now that Mnangagwa as the Commander-in-Chief of the security forces was vicariously liable as revealed in the same Commission’s report, how did we all expect the culprit to prosecute himself?
No wonder no soldier was prosecuted for the August 1 murders as recommended by the Commission because the same man who commissioned the inquiry was the security chief directly responsible for the murderous soldiers.
It’s a messy confusion which ED now seeks to worsen by arrogating upon himself the administration of a whopping 13 Acts now under his direct personal control.
The military has been a source of violence against the citizens of the country as evidenced by Gukurahundi, the 2007/8 violence and the August 1, 2018, shootings. The people have grievances and complaints against the army.
Section 210 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe states that Parliament must provide for an effective and “independent” mechanism for receiving and investigating complaints from members of the public against misconduct on the part of the security services and for remedying any harm caused by their misconduct.
Now Mnangagwa, who is the Commander-In-Chief of the same security forces that have attacked citizens, says he will administer the Zimbabwe Independent Complaints Commission Act. How does he take charge of a complaints commission that will investigate the security forces to whom he is the Commander-In-Chief? How “independent” will this so-called Commission be when the lead perpetrator (the Commander-In-Chief) takes charge of the administration of the complaints against his security forces and indirectly against himself?
It’s all a mess.
How does a robber independently administer and sdjudicate the victim’s complaint against him?
It can only happen in a banana republic.
Dear reader, just how does a President who is in his last term of office and is almost due for pension make himself in charge of the Presidential Pension and Retirement Act, as ED has just done? This means Mnangagwa wants to solve his own case by determining his own pension when he bows out.
I am not a lawyer, but I am schooled enough to know that one does not preside over a case in which they are an interested party. At law, there is a natural justice principle called nemo judex in sua causa which basically means one cannot preside over their own case, as ED seeks to do by determining his own pension and benefits if and when he leaves office!
One of the laws he has administered but was also reconfirmed by the latest gazette is the Presidential Powers (Temporary measures) Act, which he is now abusing by weaponizing it to amend primary legislation enacted by Parliament.
The Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act enables the President to make law but it has also been abused to amend primary law made by Parliament.
This is patently unconstitutional and is a violation of section 134(a) of the Constitution, which explicitly states that Parliament’s primary law-making power cannot be delegated to anyone.
Yet Mnangagwa unconstitutionally amended primary legislation in his illegal quest to grab everything and anything to do with the so-called Mutapa Investment Fund, formerly the Sovereign Wealth Fund, his new-found avenue for looting and pilferage of State assets and resources.
Dear reader, with regards to the Mutapa Investment Fund where the powers to appoint the board are already vested in him, kindly note that in the latest gazette, ED has now made himself directly in charge of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, apart from other illegal provisions he has already gazetted to the effect that the MIF’s procurement and other dealings be done in secret, with no accountability to anyone.
And yet again, self-interestedly and in violation of the nemo judex principle, Mnangagwa has made himself responsible for setting his own salary by placing under his direct control the Presidential Salary and Allowances Act.
The President is the chief public servant. Just how does a public servant give himself powers to determine his own salary?
Of course, and as already stated, he has taken charge of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Act by giving himself powers to directly and personally administer the Mutapa Investment Fund, itself a looting avenue by him and his family.
Indeed, mad Mamvura has set the stage for personally driving away the national bus laden with the whole nation and its wealth.
Given our Mamvura’s derangement, the safety of the nation and its billions worth of assets are certainly not guaranteed.
By grabbing and administering 13 critical Acts, mad Mamvura is belching away with the national bus, leaving the whole country in the thick smoke of murkiness as he unsteadily but spiritedly drives away in his confused derangement.
Conclusion
Mnangagwa’s centralisation of power through his latest gazette represents a crude autocratization of Zimbabwe .
Like the late Alex Magaisa’s famed driver, mad Mamvura, ED is driving away the national bus. Also much like Phibion Mavhondo, yet another infamous driver who last week reportedly stole a whole bus and drove it to his rural home in Gokwe claiming he did so because he had no bus fare.
Similarly, Nnangagwa has given himself all the powers to drive away with the national wealth to his village in Zvishavane.
But whether he is a Mavhondo or a Mamvura, we do not care, let us all unite as patriotic Zimbabweans across political parties, across religions, valour, tribe and creed to stop this mad man.
We must reclaim this bus from mad Mamvura. Or else posterity and history will not forgive us!
Luke Tamborinyoka is a citizen from Domboshava. He is a journalist and a political scientist by profession. Tamborinyoka is also a change champion in the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC). You can interact with him on his Facebook page or via his X handle @ luke_tambo.
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