Sengezo Tshabangu’s surrogate antics culminated in last week’s night judgement that barred CCC candidates from participating in the contrived by-elections, all in a dastardly nocturnal move that cemented ED’s reputation as the uglier version of one Robert Mugabe, the man he deposed in a coup under the false mantra of unveiling a new dispensation.
ED has now firmly etched his place in history for his witchy politics hatched in dark-hour plots and conspiracies against the citizens and their right to free political expression.
ED’s love for nocturnal and uncouth political adventures began with a midnight coup early November 2017 in which soldiers besieged Mugabe’s ‘Blue Roof’ mansion in Borrowdale, Harare, in the dead of the night and put him under house arrest.
Though they afforded him the drama of pretence by allowing him to preside over civilian functions such as attending a graduation ceremony as a chancellor of the Zimbabwe Open University, the nocturnal characters had already taken charge.
Mugabe simply became the main tragic character in that well-choreographed drama series.
Last week, the unelectable Mnangagwa yet again showcased his love for dark-hour plots and his phobia of elections by allowing his Zanu PF candidates to stroll into Parliament by heinously shutting out legitimate competition.
He used the captured judiciary to deliver a highly political judgement in the middle of the night.
Of course, it all happened thanks to a captured surrogate called Sengezo Tshabangu who literally donated all those seats to Zanu PF.
Personally I hold Tshabangu and his 30 pieces of silver liable, especially for criminally donating the Mabvuku Tafara seat, virtually uncontested, to Mnangagwa’s Gold Mafia acolyte called Pedzisai “Scott” Sakupwanya.
And Tshabangu also caused the death of an innocent pastor from Mabvuku. The pastor would not have died if Tshabangu had not caused these sham by-elections. So he heinously recalled more than just elected MPs. He played God and recalled an innocent life.
Indeed, last week, on the eve of the contrived electoral charade, Justice Isaac Muzenda, a Mutare- based High Court judge, was brought to Harare to preside over the election case.
Notwithstanding that Harare has the highest number of High Court judges in its pool, Muzenda was dragged to Harare to deliver, in the middle of the night, a sham electoral judgement which precluded CCC MPs from contesting, ostensibly allowing a clawback moment for ZANU PF to reclaim seats in areas where the citizens had sonorously rejected them on 23 August 2023.
It was all a typical case of night politics, a night court, night justice and a surrogate night High Court judge.
And not only that. In its avowed penchant for night justice and night politics, the regime also dragged lawyer Jeremiah Bhamu out of his bed at around 2210 hours on the same night to come and legitimise the midnight charade.
Bhamu was not even the lawyer representing the CCC MPs and he later had to issue a public statement clearing his name from the contrived midnight court drama that barred the legitimate CCC MPs from contesting in the election.
Talk of a witchy political leader and his midnight sorcery and political witchcraft!
One cannot have their cake and eat it. It was Zanu PF that coined the phrase “night justice” in the context of Zimbabwe’s judiciary. I am simply using their own language in dismissing this sham; this highly political night judgement that put ZANU PF on course to claim an undeserved two thirds parliamentary majority.
In October 2000, the then Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo issued vicious criticism of High Court judge, Justice Chatikobo, whom he accused of being a “night judge dispensing night justice” after having granted an urgently sought interdict after hours.
A new radio broadcasting company, Capital Radio, had sought urgent protection of the courts against Moyo who wanted to seize its equipment at a time when the main case was pending in court.
Justice Chatikobo granted an order for Capital Radio i.e., against the government and Moyo was not pleased.
The police disregarded the High Court order which Moyo ridiculed on the grounds that it had been issued by a “night judge, in a night court” and that the result had merely been “night justice”.
There were no charges of contempt of court against Minister Moyo.
And similarly, there should be no contempt of court charges for anyone who dismisses Muzenda’s judgement as night justice, which is the apt and true essence of what ED did last week through our pliable judiciary.
But Justice Chatikobo’s matter did not end there. As the Zimbabwe Independent reported on October 13, 2000, Moyo was reported to have written to the then Judge President Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku registering “government’s disquiet over [the] High Court ruling in the Capital Radio saga”.
This resulted in the High Court instituting investigations into the conduct of Justice Chatikobo who had granted the interdict giving Capital Radio protection against a search by the police.
My point is anyone must be allowed to lambast what they perceive to be night justice, especially under this era of a palpably captured judiciary that is minting highly political judgements every day to entrench ZANU PF hegemony.
We are dealing here with a regime of nocturnal disposition, a regime so wont to transact serious citizens’ business during the night as Muzenda did when he used his role on the bench to bar political contestation through a midnight court verdict.
We are talking here of politicians with a strange affinity for the night, which could be the reason why Jonathan Nathaniel Moyo, now a political disciple of ED, founded his Nathaniel Manheru column in the State-owned Herald newspaper some years back.
The column was later taken over by George Charamba, who wrote the column’s valedictory piece on 24 June 2018.
It is instructive that both characters associated with the Nathaniel Manheru column are avowed Mnangagwa supporters. Mnangagwa, the spooky murderer of witchy, night politics.
Manheru is a Shona word that refers to the night and one wonders why key ZANU FF spokespersons would love to associate themselves with night and darkness.
Or maybe it all speaks to the regime’s penchant for the witchcraft politics of the night that has now been perfected under the unelectable Emmerson Mnangagwa.
For many years, ED was minister of State Security and was in charge of the country’s spy agency, the CIO. Under his tutelage, the CIO did spooky things, including murders that continue to vex the nation to this very day. I have not even mentioned the Gukurahundi genocide in which he was a key player.
Only recently, he was boasting about his spooky legacy and its nightly shenanigans, claiming ownership of that vast, spooky and murderous infrastructure manned by the CIO.
Indeed, we are under the era of darkness and night politics when in fact the citizens’ affairs must be transacted in the daylight and broadlight gaze of transparency and accountability.
Do you remember, dear reader, the just-ended election when we all expected the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to give us polling station-based results and to explain themselves on the delayed transmission of ballot papers to opposition strongholds?
Do you still remember what happened when we all expected the ZEC chairperson, one Priscilla Makanyara Chigumba, to explain herself on a lot of these issues, including why the electoral management body had allowed a shadowy outfit called FAZ to usurp ZEC’s constitutional mandate by running the last election?
Well, dear reader, you will recall it was yet another midnight affair when on Saturday, 26 August 2023, Chigumba announced the Presidential election “results” in the dead of the night.
In a mere 360 seconds with the ticking clock almost pointing at midnight, ZEC had done the opening prayer, preliminary remarks and result announcement.
In a mere 360 seconds in the pitch darkness of midnight, ZEC was done in announcing the election results without any shred of explanation on the many issues that needed explanation around that sham disguised as an election.
In 360 seconds the national election management body was done with the serious business of announcing the much-awaited Presidential election results: the shortest orgasm ever in the history of electoral intercourse.
Talk of a regime with a penchant for night politics and nocturnal political enterprise.
Perhaps we the citizens must now make two midnights clash. Without going into detail about my suggestion, perhaps the time has come to engage in measure for measure.
Yes, we now need to increase the cost of dictatorship.
Dear reader, the time may have come for Zimbabweans to collectively “luke” the beast in the eye.
ED has dared the nation and has even moved from pitch darkness to transact his ugly family and tribal politics in broad daylight.
With his son as deputy Finance Minister and two relatives in charge of the RBZ and the Mutapa Investment Fund respectively, Mnangagwa and his family have now effectively encircled the national purse and national wealth.
ED thinks members of the Murambwi clan are the real vene , the owners of the country.
We, the citizens, must now sonorously teach him in sordid ways that Zimbabweans in their collective sense are the true owners of this land, including everything in it and on it.
Zimbabweans have never been a meek people!
Luke Tamborinyoka is a citizen from Domboshava. He is a journalist and a political scientist by profession. He is a change champion in the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) led by Advocate Nelson Chamisa. You can interact with him on his Facebook page or on the twitter handle @ luke_tambo.
