Source: Kariba ferry disaster exposes Zimbabwe as a fejafeja country hanging by a thread
When a wicked man rules, the people groan.
Kariba ferry disaster exposed a disturbing truth about Zimbabwe that the ruling elite pretends does not exist.
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The fact that a vessel operating since the 1980s was allowed to remain in service—despite obvious, escalating dangers—is symptomatic of a much larger national decay.
For over forty years, this ferry sailed overloaded.
For decades, it navigated dangerous waters.
All of this proceeded without an immediate catastrophe, so authorities treated the hazard as acceptable, and a weary public became too accustomed to the setup to raise an outcry.
Then the inevitable happened.
The ferry capsized, taking scores of innocent lives with it.
This was not an isolated tragedy.
On the surface, Zimbabwe presents the illusion of a functional society.
Every morning, people actively and confidently go about their routines.
Men and women rush to their daily pursuits; children clean their homes, fetch water, or cook the morning meal.
It all looks normal.
But beneath this quiet hustle, another Kariba disaster is waiting to happen.
We have urban centers that have lacked running water for years.
We have rickety kombis and unregistered mushikashika speeding down our roads, hooting frantically for passengers.
We have children attending school without basic learning materials, and young adults with no jobs or prospect of decent income.
We have pregnant women waiting in clinics that lack basic medical supplies.
Even our current electricity access relies on colonial-era equipment stretched past its breaking point.
It is all a facade.
A theater of normalcy.
Our leaders boast of development, and we convince ourselves that all is well simply because a catastrophic failure has not happened yet.
But as the waters of Kariba just reminded us, getting comfortable with a ticking time bomb does not make it safe.
All it takes is one moment for the thread to snap.
The persistent lack of clean water will inevitably spark a sweeping health crisis or a deadly cholera epidemic.
The ancient power infrastructure will eventually suffer a catastrophic failure, plunging the nation into prolonged darkness.
Our despondent, unemployed youth—already battling widespread substance abuse—could easily be pushed into violent crime and civil unrest.
An over-saturated informal sector, where millions sell the same imported goods without any local production, will eventually implode and leave families with zero safety net.
And our public health system, stripped of basic resources, risks complete collapse, leaving thousands to die preventable deaths.
“One day” is coming.
We are playing with fire.
There is nothing normal about how we are surviving, no matter how routinely we normalize it.
Meanwhile, the ruling elite faces none of these risks.
They do not travel on dilapidated 40-year-old ferries or crammed mushikashika.
They do not queue at communal boreholes or sit in under-equipped public wards.
Their children do not learn under trees or disused tobacco barns without books or science kits.
If anything, their sons amass so much unexplained wealth that a lover can steal millions of dollars without anyone even noticing.
Their world is completely detached from ordinary reality.
Just like the passengers who trusted an ancient ferry because it hadn’t sunk yesterday, an entire nation is living on borrowed time.
Zimbabwe has become a fejafeja nation—a country relying on luck, improvisations, and sheer chance.
The people of Zimbabwe now need to wake up before ultimate disaster strikes.
We must demand good governance from our leaders and uncompromising accountability in the usage of our national resources.
We deserve a country that actually works—an economy that serves all citizens of this great nation, and not just a privileged few.
If we remain silent, we will all eventually find ourselves aboard a country that has capsized
Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com
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