Luke-ing the Beast in the Eye: SPECIAL REPORT: Sapatina Sapatina — -When it all boils down to “eating” and proximity to the feeding trough
In the past week, there has been a trending video of a bearded member of the Johanne Masowe eChishanu apostolic church who is all over himself while celebrating eating a two-piecer chicken that costs USS$2 within the precincts of State House.
This biblical Lazarus eating crumbs from the high table amid the massive looting by the regime and its zviganandas astonishingly thinks he has arrived simply because he is eating a two piecer chicken inside State House.
Using glossolalia or the strange-tongue diction of the prophets, he even describes his two piecer as “Sapatina Sapatina”, the epitome of culinary achievement eaten by the angels, the ultimate food that he says was even prophesied by the Prophet Johanne.
The self-shot video of an adult man celebrating eating two-piecer chicken is a pitiful rendition of what Zimbabwe has sadly become, a country where the biblical Lazarus goes poetic when describing his crumbs while the high and mighty and a well-connected retinue of tenderpreneurs loot the country dry at the high table.
For his grand stupidity that has gone viral, the notorious tummied tenderpreneur has now rewarded the mupostori with a Toyota Fortuner vehicle and US$20 000 spending money so that he can buy himself “sapatina sapatina”, a phrase that has now become shorthand for the celebrated two piecer chicken in a country that has no paracetamol, let alone a single functional hospital.
For me, that viral video depicts the political moment in Zimbabwe. Ours has become a pitiful moment of Sapatina Sapatina politics where everything has unfortunately boiled down to “eating” and proximity to the feeding trough.
ED, his family and a small circle of his acolytes fronted by the tummied one and Kuda Tagwirei have become the epic drivers of sapatina sapatina politics, the politics of “eating”.
They themselves have eaten big and have no table manners, especially the tummied one who makes cacophonous noise from the epic dinner table!
These guys alone have not only eaten the fruits of independence but have eaten the stem, bark and the leaves as well.
They are now going for the very roots of our collectively owned independence.
Welcome to Zimbabwe’s sapatina sapatina politics; the politics of”eating”.
In a leaked video, Temba Mliswa was very clear that he has children (ndine vana). He was unapologetic when he confirmed that he was in it for sapatina sapatina, put simply for “eating.”
That’s how low the bar has sunk in our politics!
While ED is the godfather, Tagwirei and Chivayo as the chief priests of this cheap brand of politics have adulterated the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) and the Johanne Masowe eChishanu churches respectively by dragging them into the gothic abyss of Sapatina Sapatina politics, a shorthand for the politics of “eating.”
It’s now all about eating.
We are told Tagwirei is now personally sponsoring the monthly wages of all SDA pastors in the country while Chivayo dragged members and prophets from his church to State House for chicken and chips.
In typical sapatina sapatina protocol, Chivayo and Tagwirei have inadvertently placed the Johanne Masowe eChishanu church and the SDA right inside the oesophagus of a gluttonous politics that seeks to “eat” in the name of God.
How blasphemous can we ever get than this reduction of God into a cheap conversation about chicken and chips!
Tagwirei and Chivayo have taken us back to the old debate about the roles of the church and the State.
Only that in a sapatina sapatina State like Zimbabwe, the church becomes the biblical Lazarus who must eat and be poetic about his crumbs while singing praises for those eating the real meal on his behalf at the high table.
While ED is the godfather with his chosen successor Tagwirei as the protagonist of the sapatina sapatina politics of eating, Chiwenga too is bidding for his time to eat with his own set of people.
But it is not just Zanu PF. Some of my erstwhile colleagues too have fallen prey to the Sapatina Sapatina politics of ”eating”and were paid to destroy the opposition by turning a whole people’s struggle into a selfish enterprise for personal gain and benefit.
They have been bought; some during the day and others during the night.
The problem with Sapatina Sapatina politics is that it reduces and cheapens a legitimate people’s struggle for better health care and jobs into a simple quest for chicken and chips.
I have gone public about how I turned down Mnangagwa’s offers of trinkets and trappings because for me, the democratic struggle was never intended for personal benefit.
I have gone public that I turned down sapatina sapatina politics which sucked in some of my former colleagues in the democratic struggle who are now abetting the regime either by publicly backing it or through acquiescence by silence, even amid the massive looting and corruption that is benefitting Mnangagwa, his family and a few of his friends.
At a personal level, I turned down sapatina sapatina politics because I learnt from the very best.
It’s just that some of my colleagues were poor students of the icon but Morgan Tsvangirai taught us that a struggle is always prosecuted for the common people and never for personal benefit.
Sadly, except for the very few genuine democrats among my former colleagues, even the democratic struggle has been sacrificed on the altar of sapatina sapatina.
Indeed, it has all now boiled down to ”eating” and proximity to the feeding trough.
On the national scale, ED has deliberately and systematically elevated his Karanga kinsmen and kinswomen because it is now their time to eat, in conformity with the culinary sapatina sapatina dictum of the politics of “eating.”.
They believe Mugabe ate with his people and now it is their own time to eat as well.
The ordinary person is peripheral in this eating agenda, except the very few like our dear “Lazarus” who are made to think they are better than the rest of us simply because they have been given two-piecer chicken at the State House grounds, what he glowingly calls “pamba penyika.”
He even boastfully chided the rest of us that we might die without enjoying the privilege of setting foot inside State House, which for him is obviously an achievement of a lifetime, never mind his parlous living condition as soon as he sets out of those plush grounds soon after eating his piece of chicken.
Welcome to Zimbabwe, the bedrock of the sapatina sapatina brand of politics where a grey-haired father without a single underwear shoots a selfie celebrating that he has arrived because he has eaten a two-piecer chicken inside the precincts of State House.
He seems unaware that his sorry plight was authored by the very people who have brought him to State House.
His life horizons are so pitiably limited. He is so poor he even thinks that a two-piecer chicken is the ultimate culinary dish, what he describes as “kudya kwengirozi”, the dish for the angels.
Meanwhile, A-loota continua. The looting continues.
Cry, the beloved country.
Luke Tamborinyoka, now based in the United Kingdom, is a citizen from Domboshava. He is by profession a journalist and a political scientist. You can interact with him via his facebook page or his X handle @luke_tambo.
