Things fall apart, as Mphoko breaks wind

Source: Things fall apart, as Mphoko breaks wind – DailyNews Live

6 February 2017

HARARE – That Zimbabwe once again finds itself on the edge politically and
economically – and that the centre can no longer hold both within the
ruling Zanu PF and in government – is not a subject for speculation or
conjecture anymore.

Indeed, it does not matter which way long-suffering Zimbabweans look, the
damning evidence of the country’s ever deepening rot abounds everywhere –
all of it thanks to President Robert Mugabe and his useless minions.

Just consider the following snippet of evidence to appreciate the
country’s hopeless lot: the economy is dying as manifested by the severe
liquidity and cash shortages; the government is stone-broke and cannot pay
its workers; poverty levels are now shamefully higher than they were in
minority-ruled Rhodesia; national infrastructure and social services,
including the road network and hospitals have collapsed; companies are
closing shop in their thousands; and job losses have reached catastrophic
levels.

And the damnatory evidence goes on and on – amid truly frightening
indications that the situation will get worse this year and beyond, as our
clueless Zanu PF overlords continue to demonstrate their gross
incompetence and lack of capacity to fix the country’s myriad crises.

Our heartless rulers’ response to the problems bedevilling Zimbabwe – many
of them man-made, manufactured, packaged and delivered via Shake-Shake
House (Zanu PF Headquarters to the uninitiated) – is their mindless
infighting over who will succeed Mugabe, as well as their crass and
patently corrupt policies.

All of which only serve to make our already desperate situation worse.

Lord, why are we so cursed, and what did we do as a nation to deserve
these hyenas?

But it gets worse. The escalating level and brutal tone of Zanu PF’s ugly
tribal, factional and succession wars is not only threatening a complete
implosion of the troubled former liberation movement – of which not many
will moan its demise, except for a few beneficiaries of the current
corrupt system – it has also meant that there is now paralysis in
government, which is causing further pain and suffering among innocent
citizens.

The real worry though, as the inevitable end for this regime approaches,
one way or the other, is that it could spawn more chaos and unravel
violently – given the well-documented tendency by the ruling party to
resort to violence each time its power is threatened – making life even
more difficult for fed up Zimbabweans.

Remember here how Zanu PF’s unthinking supporters reacted in 2008 after
Mugabe lost hands down to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in that
year’s disputed presidential elections.

Without wanting to sound alarmist, and notwithstanding the best, but
futile efforts of the likes of Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa and
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya, our beloved country is
now perilously close to being officially certified as a failed State!

We pray that things will not tumble that low.

Then we have people like the litigious and gaffe-prone Vice President,
Phelekezela Mphoko, in the country’s leadership mix, who never disappoint
when it comes to disgorging a constant and consistent stream of horse
manure. The VP is truly gifted in this regard, if this can be looked at as
a talent!

In his latest display of his unmatchable intellect (no pun intended),
Mphoko – who was in the news three years ago after he was quoted saying
that Gukurahundi was a Western conspiracy – told journalists in Bulawayo
at the weekend, without batting an eye or offering any shred of evidence
for that matter, that Tsvangirai was allegedly at the “forefront” when the
late revered Father Zimbabwe, Joshua Nkomo, was being hounded by Zanu PF:
the party in which he is number two.

“Let us not forget that when Cde Nkomo’s car was shot he (Tsvangirai) was
at the forefront, when an officer in charge was killed in Tsholotsho, he
was there too. The same person wants to address the Gukuraundi issue now,”
Mphoko bellowed, to quote him verbatim as captured on film and in print by
the trusted State media on such matters.

Really Cde Mphoko?

Without belabouring the point, we hope that the esteemed VP with the super
distinguished liberation struggle credentials and immense national
standing, as self-claimed by him, will now go on, at last, to tell us in
detail what really happened during the era of Gukurahundi, when an
estimated 20 000 innocent civilians were massacred by the government
mainly in Matabeleland and the Midlands – particularly taking into account
the fact that he was previously associated with national intelligence and
is now in charge of national healing.

And while at it, we hope that he will also have the courage to ask his
appointing authority what role he may or may not have played during these
killings.