via Tell Mugabe the truth – DailyNews Live 8 June 2015
HARARE – Webster Shamu’s recent three-year suspension from Zanu PF should serve as a warning to those who have built their political careers through bootlicking.
Until the contentious Zanu PF congress last December that brutally purged many perceived loyalists of former Vice President Joice Mujuru, Shamu was the undoubted master bootlicker in the ruling party.
Who can forget how the former ruling party political commissar and ex-Information minister took the bootlicking of President Robert Mugabe to insane heights when he told revellers at the Harare International Festival of the Arts (Hifa) a couple of years ago how he wished Mugabe was his biological father.
“If I was given the option to choose my father before birth, where would I go?
“I would have been Chatunga’s elder brother. I would have been number one at First House, at president Mugabe’s house. I would have said that’s where I want to be born,” Shamu said then with a straight face.
At a rally in Hurungwe last week, Shamu — a key ally of Mujuru, surprised many when he lambasted those questioning the legitimacy of the 2014 Zanu PF congress.
Despite this volte-face, Shamu was sent packing by the ruling party a few days later.
Even though Zanu PF is teeming to the brim with bootlickers, we somehow hope that they now realise the damage that has been caused by the bootlicking and deification of Mugabe.
Over the years, several Cabinet ministers and key public servants, who are supposed to give our president honest and impartial advice on how to end the economic crisis we are stuck in, have instead consistently battled to outdo each other in projecting Mugabe as some divine appointee whose decisions are beyond censure.
Last year, Public Service Commission (PSC) chairman Mariyawanda Nzuwah described Mugabe as “a messenger sent by God to liberate and lead us” during a luncheon held to celebrate the 91-year-old’s 90th birthday.
Many will remember how former Mines and now Transport minister Obert Mpofu earned acres of newspaper space a few years ago when it was revealed that he signed off letters to Mugabe as “your ever obedient son.”
Given the abundance of Cabinet ministers and key public servants without the guts to make the president see the errors of his economic thinking, is it surprising that Zimbabwe is stuck in the doldrums despite being blessed with vast natural resources?
For this reason we hope that Shamu’s suspension will make our politicians realise that bootlicking generates immediate gratification but has no long -term benefits for the individual and the country at large.
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