Why I am rooting for my new president

Everyone has a story to tell when it comes to Robert Mugabe. Like millions of Zimbabweans, I was resigned to the fact that Robert Mugabe would be my president until he dies. However it was the thought that Grace Mugabe would succeed him that that made me want to puke. To be honest Zimbabweans never really liked Grace Mugabe even years before she opened her mouth and uttered those taboo words. Second wives are always accused of taking another man's wife. I remember growing up in police camps and I would hear women saying,"akatora murume wemunhu" meaning she stole someone's man/husband. Obviously this is just perpetuation of patriarchy where only the second wife is blamed but not the husband who is thought of being helpless to the charms of the second wife. In all my stay in Zimbabwe, I had never experienced such behaviour as exhibited by Grace Mugabe from any lady. I had stayed with both my grandmothers, my mother, my mother in law, all my aunts, my sisters in law etc. and none of them had behaved like our former first lady. I had only noticed such behaviour from intoxicated people or those that had a mental illness. From 1989 to 1990 we had stayed at Mbizo Police station in Kwekwe and our house was right next to the gate and around 300 metres from the gate there was the council's Garandichauya bar. There ladies of the night would walk to and from the bar and when they were intoxicated they would shout obscenities.

 I had promised myself that after Mugabe dies in office, I would visit Heroes Acre once more to make sure that he is gone for good. This would be second time I would have visited the shrine. The only other time I visited Heroes Acre was in 1999 during the burial of Vice President Joshua Nkomo, I had gone to pay my respects to this great stateman, I walked all the way from Avondale. So on 18 November 2017, I woke up in Pretoria around midnight as I normally sleep only for a few hours. I started looking for any available flights to Harare. I had two challenges that morning, firstly to wake up my wife Manyoni and disturb her sleep, she loves her sleep very much and also to convince her that I was going to spend so much money that morning. My sales experience came in handy as I was on my way to O.R Tambo airport by 4am. I landed in Harare around 10am. As I disembarked from the taxi along Robert Mugabe road that morning, I kept on pinching myself to make sure that I was not dreaming,where all these people demonstrating against the all powerful and mighty Robert Mugabe for real?


Robert Mugabe Road in the morning of the demonstration

 I really wanted to go to Zimbabwe Grounds in Highfied for the gathering but I had to go home first to catch up on sleep and also to recharge my phone. Highfield has special significance for me as I was born at Harare hospital just a few kilometres away. In line with the Shona custom as the first child, I was supposed to be born at my mother's parents home in Murewa. When the days of my birth drew closer, my mother went to Murewa hospital. She then had complications and she was transferred to Salisbury as Harare was known then during the colonial era. The referral hospital for blacks was Harare Hospital also known as Kugomo and I was delivered there through ceasarian section. My father's uncle has a house in Highfield and also at that time my mother's eldest brother had bought a house in the nearby high density suburb of Glen Norah upon his return from Zambia with his Zambian wife and we alternated among the two houses. Growing up I was naughty and my mother always reminded me that as a child born via operation (ceasarian section) I should not give her so much grief as she had suffered so much for me and also that whenever the weather was cold she would feel the pain from that operation.

After lunch I took a taxi back to Harare city centre and started moving up the road with crowds of people along fourth street on the way to State House. I passed by Eagle House where I started my insurance career 20years ago. The special place for me was along Samora Machel avenue where the president's office is housed. In August 2007 in the company of my wife a few weeks before I left Zimbabwe to escape the dire economic situation and settle in Pretoria, I was assaulted by an armed police guard in the evening on our way back to Holiday Inn hotel from First Street. I had decided that it would be safer to pass through Samora Machel Avenue as it would be safe from any potential muggers due to the presence of armed guards.


Along Samora Machel Avenue

I eventually made it to within 100 metres of the State House and everyone was jovial and the soldiers were friendly. State House induces fear in many Zimbabweans, it is not like The Union Buildings here in Pretoria where families go there for a Sunday picnic. When I was working in Harare, I tried to avoid driving nearer to State House as much as possible. Manyoni was working in Borrowdale and my biggest client was also in Borrowdale so I had to go there most days. The most direct way to go to Borrowdale was to drive past State House. I would avoid the State House by either driving up Second street (now Sam Nujoma street) and then turn right towards the University of Zimbabwe campus or go via Newlands and then Highlands. The soldiers and police guarding State House are very brutal, I once saw a motorist being forced to push his car alone all the way past State House after it had broken down. I almost had a run in with the goons around 2004 when my company issued Mazda double cab bakkie stalled next to Prince Edward school on the corner of Princes road and Prince Edward street. Unbeknown to me the motor cade of Robert Mugabe was going to pass through that intersection on his way to Zanu-PF headquarters. Two men wearing suits whom I suspected to be members of the dreaded CIO stopped and ordered me to push my car off the road, I could not push the bakkie on my own as it was very heavy. After about 30 minutes another car stopped by and I explained to them that I could not push the car on my own and the two security officers then helped me to push the bakkie off the road.



A long suffering Arsenal fan in our midst




Banner asking Zimbabweans in the diaspora to come home

 I am rooting for our new President Mr Emmerson Munangagwa even though, I have consistently voted for Morgan Tsvangirai and his party since 2000. I was hoping that he was going to put together a transitional government for a few years and sort out the economy and postpone the elections. Myself as a farmer and businessman, his success is my success. I feel like the economic failures of Zimbabwe always follow me wherever I go. Zimbabwe should move away from being the skunk of Sourthern Africa. I am tired of being a foreigner. Being a foreigner is hard my friends. My experience has been always to expect the answer,"No", and when that answer is served, it always crashes my spirits. I long to be part of a society where I have equal opportunities like everyone else without anyone telling me that I do not qualify because I am not a citizen. I also want the same for my children as I worry that if they experience what I have experienced as a foreigner they might not handle it well.

On Sunday 2 September 2007 my brother in law was then pursuing his doctorate at University of Pretoria and also my youngest sister was pursuing her masters' degree at the same university. My brother in law asked me to accompany him to the main campus in Hatfield Pretoria. Whilst he was busy discussing with fellow PHD candidates who were all from other African countries and mostly Zimbabweans, I was reading the column by the late editor of Zimbabwe Standard newspaper Mr Bill Saidi. I then wrote to him recounting my story and on the following weekend he wrote the following  column http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/old/sep9a_2007.html#Z20

When optimism buys you zilch

Zim Standard

  sundayopinion by Bill Saidi

IN the evening, when you and your wife are walking back to your hotel,
after tucking into expensive but delicious pizza, it is downright
humiliating to be asked to lie down flat on your belly in the street.

Depending on your threshold of tolerance, you might decide there and
then to leave the country of your birth for the wild blue yonder.

Some people might call this over-reaction; others might, at a pinch,
propose that this display of cruelty to a man's dignity was the last straw.

Which is what it was for the man who wrote this to me last week:

"Events over the past three months left me with no choice. At the end
of June, I left my position as a branch manager of an insurance company. I
just wanted to concentrate on my business(es); three grocery shops, a
seven-tonne lorry, a minibus and a pick-up.

"As much as my branch manager position gave me a lot of prestige, it
no longer made sense for me to continue earning a salary that could barely
fill (up) a tank of petrol. So I left it all - a good Toyota twin cab truck,
a three-bedroomed house, with a swimming pool in a posh suburb and all the
prestige, to concentrate on my indigenous businesses."

This Zimbabwean is writing from Pretoria: "I am starting work tomorrow
exactly 12 days after having collected my quota work permit at the SA
embassy in Harare. I had to leave Zimbabwe in a huff, maybe I had no choice
or maybe I had a choice but I am just a coward."

He was responding to my piece last week, Up Close and Personal. . .in
Agony

For him, the clincher was an encounter with armed men guarding
Munhumutapa building in Harare. In his own words:

"On our way back to the hotel, I decided that as it was past seven, it
was no longer safe for us to use Kwame Nkrumah Avenue and I suggested we use
Samora Machel Avenue and this should be safe for us since there would be
police guarding Munhumutapa building. As we approached Munhumutapa building
the metal button of my jacket accidentally hit against the metal section of
the telephone substation next to the pavement. At that time the armed police
asked my wife. Ambuya, chiyi chamakanda pahwindo? (Lady, what did you just
throw at the window?)"

Here, I am inclined to say "The rest is history". But I suspect some
people will not be content until I give them what others call the "full
Monty" or the whole enchilada. But what followed was almost routine, vintage
Zimbabwean.

After a few exchanges with the soldiers, he ended up lying flat on his
belly, in front of his understandably flabbergasted wife. It was his wife's
comment later to which he thought I ought to pay special attention:

"Shamwari, iwe ne optimism yako! Let's leave the country. You see,
that policeman could just have killed you . . . just like that (snap of the
fingers? and got away with it."

Evidently, it wasn't a spur-of-the-moment decision. The couple had
been contemplating it for some time, as other couples - single men and
women, confirmed old bachelors and middle-aged spinsters and families - have
done since 2000.

Nobody with even a cursory understanding of Zanu PF politics, since
Gukurahundi, could imagine them reacting to this human haemorrhage with
anything other than "Who cares?" or "So what?"

Life in exile has never been a bed of roses, not in the Americas, in
Europe, Asia, Africa or Australasia.

Not everyone who has fled the economic and political squalor of
countries such as Zimbabwe has eventually finished up as a human Zero. The
people who escaped Nazi terror included the German-born Werner von Broun and
Albert Einstein. They became living legends in their adopted country, the
USA.

This should not encourage young Zimbabwean nerds or eggheads to flee
to South Africa in the hope that, while there, they might discover a Nobel
Prize-winning chemical that, when secreted into the womb, will ensure no
African child is born with the genes that could turn them into maniacal
dictators - although this might solve a lot of problems for the continent.

Zimbabweans have eventually done well in many fields of human
endeavour, once they have braved the scourge of xenophobia that afflicts
every country in the world.

The South Africans are divided over what status to accord Zimbabweans
escaping what has been called The Mugabe Menace: bona fide refugees or
economic asylum seekers?

So far, Zimbabweans do not enjoy the status of refugees: their country
is not in a state of civil war - well, not physically, anyway - nor has
their president declared publicly everyone who opposes his regime must be
fed to the lions in Gonarezhou.

What he has done, not in so many words, is to indicate, chillingly,
graphically, that opposing Zanu PF too openly can be very costly - at least,
to your health.

You will be starved of food, either with empty supermarket shelves or
the denial of food aid from donors.

Personally, my sympathies lie with both sides - the cowards and the
people of courage who decide to stick it out to the end.

Incidentally, I spent 17 years in another country, before 1980. I have
mixed feelings about my period there. Mostly, I wonder how I survived that
long.

saidib@standard.co.zw

Zimbabwe police favours the status quo

Here is a quick guide why the Zimbabwe Police leadership was not part of the security forces press conference on Monday.

 

The Status Quo Benefits the Police

Some people have joked that the police should now be renamed to Zimbabwe Revenue Police. Ideally any revenue that the police collect should be passed on to the Consolidated Revenue Fund at the Treasury but that is no longer the case as the police now retain all the monies. We all know that Zimbabwe has been a police state from the colonial times. Now the police commanders not only commands the brute police force but now they are in charge of all the revenue that the police now collects. At Beitbridge border there is a police post where all the border jumpers are required to pay a fine of R320 or US$20 and that money goes straight to the police. A bus I boarded from Pretoria to Harare on 2 October 2017 about 75% of the passengers had to pay that fine to the police. It is estimated that between 50 and 100 buses cross from South Africa into Zimbabwe each day and you can see how lucrative this is for the police.  A mere 50 metres from the border gate, there is the first traffic check point where all the cross border buses get stopped to pay the spot fine for being behind time. Obviously because of the delays at the border post each and every bus has to pay that spot fine as they cant stick to their official time table.

From Beitbridge to Harare if you travel during the day, you can encounter over 15 police check points. At each and every check point the police will charge motorists spot fines for various traffic offences.  During October 2017, I was going to Zimbabwe every week and I was once given a lift by a police officer from Beitbridge to Harare. The officer told me that they had daily targets to meet and that is why they never caution a motorist and  for any traffic offence they must collect a fine. My house about 18km from Harare city, there is at least 5 traffic check points along that short distance. If you board a minibus taxi even though legally they are only allowed to have 15 passengers, they can fit between 18 to 22 passengers per journey. What happens is that each morning they pay the spot fines to the police and they use those ticket receipts for the whole day. So in Harare and across the country, you will find the overcrowded and clearly not roadworthy  commuter taxis moving around each day and the police are not bothered as long as they have collected the fines for the day. In my view these fines are actually just taxes that the police charges for their own use. Zimbabwe being generally a peaceful country, a lot of the police officers are sent to collect revenue for the police.

We all know that Zimbabwe is now a failed state. From the little revenue that the Government gets, they try to prioritise the military but clearly due to the economic policies of the regime as well as the lack of rule of law there is no new investment in the country hence the government is living on borrowed time. Ordinary soldiers even though they get their salaries paid first ahead of all other civil servants, they still have to go and queue at the banks where there is no cash. Contrast this with the police; whilst the police officers are collecting fines for their bosses, they also get bribes. In government hospitals there are even shortages of penicillin but we can see police officers moving around in their new Israeli made Anti-riot water tanks, new Scania trucks and brand new ford pick-up trucks as they generate their own revenue. From my brief stay in Zimbabwe, I discovered that the most hated group of people where the police officers, the first lady, Jonathan Moyo and his G40. To borrow a statement coined by Secretary Hillary Clinton. I would also term all these group of people as a basket of deplorables.  Ordinary citizens now commends people who run away from the traffic police.

A look at the leadership of the police

Many years ago, a childhood friend who was working in the police protection unit which is a police unit tasked with protecting VIPs told me that the core bodyguards for Mugabe are made up mainly of his close relatives. Six years ago Mugabe promoted Innocent Matibiri a close relative to be the deputy Commissioner General and is now in charge of operations in the Zimbabwe police. So the current police leadership also has a vested personal interest in the status quo.

 

In conclusion

It’s no secret that the majority of the people will welcome a military coup but that will not be the solution. Also a Munangagwa’s presidency is not the answer. Some of us who grew up in Kwekwe where Munangagwa was the Zanu-PF member of Parliament witnessed the violence in the 1985 and 1990 general elections. We urgently need a National Transitional Authority in Zimbabwe as no meaningful election can be held in Zimbabwe. We must avoid the route that Egypt took after the demise of the Mubarak’s regime. I also watched Gwede Mantashe ANC Secretary General’s statement on Zimbabwe. May I remind ANC government and all the neighbouring countries that after former President Thabo Mbeki’s role in aiding and abetting the Mugabe’s regime in subverting the will of Zimbabwe people from the 2000 election. As Morgan Tsvangirai said Zimbabwe is no longer a foreign affairs issue for South Africa but it is now a domestic issue. The current ANC government should own up and help to solve this issue before it disintergrates further. One can read the Kamphepe report on the 2002 Zimbabwe presidential election compiled by former Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke and Judge Sisi Kamphepe on how the elections were stolen https://mg.co.za/article/2014-11-14-khampepe-zimbabwes-2002-elections-not-free-and-fair

Happy Birthday to my best friend

 Happy birthday to my dearest Betty also known as Onita or Mai Denny  

I first saw this beauty in early 1999. One evening on my way home from work, I boarded the Chawasarira Bus from Harare City Centre to Chitungwiza. I happened to sit next to this beauty; she was sleeping half the journey. At first, I was scared to talk to her and then I was like what do I have to lose? I even tried to impress you with my newly acquired 3^rd hand Ericson cellphone by phoning my mother’s home from my newly acquired Econet prepaid Buddie line and you were not impressed. Luckily you still gave me a chance, by the time you disembarked from the bus, I had your CABS head office work number and I had also given you my office telephone number at Eagle Insurance company and I challenged you to phone me at work.

The following working day, you phoned me on my office number. From then onwards we would talk over the phone for close to an hour most days. I don’t know how even now, we can always talk for hours and hours. During weekends and after work, I would phone on your father’s cellphone and ask to speak to you.  As I got to know you, I was impressed that you knew exactly what you wanted in life and you were so opinionated. One weekend around 2000-2001 you said you did not feel like going out and I should come to your parent’s home with video cassettes. I was so nervous when I thought of all those brothers of yours. We sat in the tv lounge whilst your mother was busy with her sewing machine. The first movie I think it was from Jean-Claude Van Damme and it went very well. Your father then came in and also sat in the lounge when we started playing Leon Schuster’s Panic Mechanic. I was so embarrassed when the movie started to play and I wished I could just disapper.

For the few months I stayed in Chitungwiza, I would bump into you in the bus and it was always my pleasure to offer you my seat and then continue the journey as a standing passenger. I might have hidden from you on some days when I also very tired to stand-up the whole 25km of the journey and I will spend the rest of my days making it up to you. When our relationship got serious, we would meet after work in Harare city centre upstairs at KFC Jason Moyo avenue and those days all we could afford was the ice cream.

 Up to when I met you, I had never really thought of settling down. I knew it was time to introduce you to the beautiful and strong women in my life, my sisters, my aunt in Sunningdale and my mother. Growing up, I remember some of the stories whenever I went to the village during school holidays about marrying someone from Masvingo and my eldest cousin had married from Masvingo. When I met you I did not care what my relatives would say, I was okay with marrying Wezhira. Marrying you is the best decision that I made in my life. We share many interests such as reading widely and the love for travelling.

We have been through so many changes in our life. Remember the days we started staying together as a couple in Avondale in September 2001 when we did not have much and we could not even afford a fridge and then moving houses, relocating to Bulawayo and finally having to leave our country of birth to come to South Africa. Thank you for being a pillar of strength. They say you can be as good as the company that you keep, thank you for being in my board of directors and I know any idea that I come up with must always stand up to your usual scrutiny. Thanks for trying to make me a better man and I hope to listen more to you. I have learnt a lot from you and at times, I have to remind you that you are no longer working at CABS mortgage department as you are more forceful that I always have to pay my debts on time.

Thank you Manyoni for making me the happiest man alive in the short 16 years that we have been married. Thank you for being a wonderful mother to our boys. Thank you for also being a mother to my brothers and sisters, I owe you a lot for taking in my siblings into our home at their greatest time of need when my mother also followed my father to a better place. I know you did not have to, you just did and you never complained about it. I believe my parents were able to rest in peace knowing that you and I would take care of their children.

May the good lord bless you, make all your dreams come true and give you an awesome life ahead.

Happy Birthday baby Ra Dabbie