Mr. President, dismissing Zimbabweans’ cries as ‘noise’ is an insult to our suffering

President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s fiery remarks at the ongoing ZANU-PF People’s Conference in Mutare, in which he dismissed Zimbabweans’ criticism of rampant corruption as nothing more than “online chatter” and “empty noise,” must be one of the most contemptuous and insensitive statements ever uttered by a sitting head of state.

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For a man presiding over a nation crushed under unbearable poverty, collapsing infrastructure, and moral decay in public office, such arrogance is not just insulting—it is cruel.

It is deeply painful to hear the president of a country in such crisis trivialize the cries of millions who have been reduced to destitution by corruption, misgovernance, and impunity.

How can any leader worth the title call the outpouring of anguish from citizens “mere noise” when the evidence of national decay is so glaring?

How can he dismiss legitimate outrage over the looting of state resources when the perpetrators—many of them connected to those in high office—are paraded as “successful businesspeople” instead of being held accountable?

What kind of leadership mocks suffering rather than confronts its causes?

Every day, we watch “tenderpreneurs” and political cronies walk away with multi-million-dollar contracts, often awarded without proper procurement processes, sometimes for projects that never get completed—or are done so shoddily that they become another drain on public coffers.

Zimbabwe loses billions of dollars each year to corruption, according to various reports, yet those responsible rarely face justice.

Instead, they are celebrated, protected, and shielded from scrutiny.

And when citizens dare to speak out, to express their frustration and demand accountability, the response from the highest office is to sneer at their voices as “social media noise.”

Mr. President, those “hashtags” you mock are the desperate pleas of a people suffocating under the weight of poverty and hopelessness.

They are not abstract online musings but the voices of real men and women who breathe the same air as you do, who queue for hours for water, who survive on a single meal a day, and who bury loved ones because hospitals have become death traps.

They are the nurses who cannot afford to send their children to school, the teachers whose salaries cannot buy a basket of groceries, the civil servants who walk to work because transport fares have become unaffordable.

Can you, Mr. President, in good conscience, call this “noise” when our hospitals are without essential drugs, when patients are told to bring their own bandages, gloves, and even fuel for ambulances?

Is it “mere online chatter” when thousands of families lose loved ones because basic life-saving equipment in public hospitals lies broken or nonexistent?

When private healthcare is a luxury only for the rich and politically connected, leaving the rest of us to watch helplessly as our mothers, fathers, and children die unnecessarily?

My own mother died under such conditions—caught in a system so broken that it robs the poor of even the dignity of proper medical care.

Tell me, Mr. President, was my pain just “noise” too?

When ordinary Zimbabweans cannot afford a decent meal, cannot send their children to school, cannot find work in an economy that produces millionaires only for the corrupt—what would you have us do?

Applaud our misery?

Should we dance in the streets to celebrate our hunger?

Should we remain silent as a handful grow fat off the nation’s carcass while the rest waste away?

What type of leader finds comfort in dismissing his people’s suffering rather than listening and responding to it?

Let us be clear: social media is not a substitute for democracy, but it has become one of the few remaining safe spaces for expression in a country where public protest has been criminalized.

Since November 2017, when you came to power through a military coup, not a single anti-government demonstration has been allowed to proceed peacefully.

Police routinely deny clearance for public gatherings, and those who dare to defy the ban are met with arrests, tear gas, and even bullets.

In such a repressive environment, the digital space has become the only platform for citizens to voice their grievances and hold leaders accountable.

And even then, it has not been safe.

Opposition leaders, journalists, human rights defenders, and ordinary citizens have been arrested and dragged before courts for nothing more than posting critical comments online.

Many of these charges have later been thrown out by higher courts for lack of merit, exposing the political persecution for what it truly is—a tool to silence dissent.

Yet you have the audacity, Mr. President, to claim that “no amount of online chatter will sway the party’s course.”

That statement does not reflect confidence in leadership; it exposes contempt for the governed.

A true leader listens to the heartbeat of his people.

He does not dismiss their voices as noise; he interprets them as a national pulse, a moral compass guiding him back to the essence of public service.

Zimbabweans are not enemies of the state.

They are citizens crying out for justice, dignity, and accountability.

To mock them for using the only voice they have left is to reveal just how disconnected your administration has become from the lived realities of the people you claim to serve.

If the World Bank’s statistics are anything to go by, over 80 percent of Zimbabweans live below the poverty line.

This is not noise; it is national despair.

If corruption and mismanagement have reduced once-vibrant cities to ghost towns, this is not online chatter; it is evidence of systemic failure.

If young people are leaving the country in droves, not out of choice but necessity, this is not mere social media activism—it is a national exodus born of hopelessness.

And yet, instead of humility and introspection, we are met with defiance and insult.

Instead of accountability, we are offered empty rhetoric about sovereignty and liberation credentials.

Mr. President, sovereignty means nothing if it is used as a shield for corruption and oppression.

Liberation means nothing if those who fought for freedom now stand in the way of it.

No leader who truly loves his country should ever belittle his people’s pain.

Dismissing our cries as “noise” will not make our hunger go away, nor will it rebuild our hospitals, create jobs, or end corruption.

Instead, it only deepens the chasm between ruler and ruled, between the privileged few and the forgotten millions.

Mr. President, you may dismiss us today.

You may mock our voices and scorn our digital platforms.

But remember this: throughout history, meaningful change has often begun with voices that those in power once dismissed as noise.

Those voices are not driven by hostility or malice, but by deep love for their country and a yearning for dignity, justice, and honest leadership.

To ignore them is to ignore the conscience of a nation that simply seeks to be heard and healed.

• Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to WhatsApp or Call: +263715667700 | +263782283975, or email: mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com, or visit website: https://mbofanatendairuben.news.blog/