No leadership lesson could be greater than this.
Yesterday, September 6, marked seven years since the death of Zimbabwe’s founding leader, Robert Gabriel Mugabe.
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Seven years on, his legacy remains profoundly polarizing, casting a long, unyielding shadow over the nation he ruled for nearly four decades. To some, Mugabe remains an unyielding pan-African hero who broke the back of colonial minority rule. To others, he is remembered as a ruthless autocrat whose hands were stained with the blood of innocent Zimbabweans, and whose catastrophic economic policies shattered a once-flourishing country.
Yet, beyond the heated debates, Mugabe’s trajectory provides a stark, timeless lesson for modern governance: leadership must be temporary. Any leader who refuses to step aside while at the peak of their achievements risks destroying their own legacy and leaving behind a trail of national ruin. Mugabe, love him or hate him, started off with undeniable promise. Despite the dark horror of the early 1980s—when his military unleashed a campaign of violence in Matabeleland and the Midlands, killing over 20,000 civilians—his administration achieved extraordinary progress in those early decades.
Having led a successful liberation struggle against a Rhodesian colonial state built on racial segregation, Mugabe moved decisively to dismantle institutional racism and uplift the black majority. Having started my grade one in 1980, my generation was among the first black children to benefit from this transformed system right from the beginning. Unlike older generations who had to transition mid-stream, we entered well-funded, properly resourced schools that had previously been reserved exclusively for whites. The administration launched a massive expansion of social services.
By 1980, the colonial regime had established fewer than twenty government schools for black children across the entire country. Mugabe’s government built thousands of primary and secondary schools, particularly in neglected rural communities. Most of the public schools standing in Zimbabwe today—even if currently starved of funding—exist because of that early drive. The same transformation occurred in healthcare. Colonial Rhodesia left rural healthcare almost entirely to Christian mission stations, offering little beyond small, underfunded dispensaries staffed by basic medical assistants. The Mugabe government systematically built government-run hospitals and clinics across rural districts, bringing formal healthcare to millions for the first time. Concurrently, racial integration opened up the broader economy, allowing black professionals to occupy senior positions in corporate and government sectors. Infrastructure expanded rapidly. Urban skylines rose with iconic Harare landmarks like the Karigamombe Centre and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe headquarters.
The country invested in major initiatives, including an electric rail system that showcased early modern ambitions before it was eventually brought down by vandalism and theft. Completely new highways were paved into previously isolated regions; the treacherous dirt road to my mother’s rural home in Rusape, which once took hours to navigate for just 25 kilometers, became a smooth 30-minute drive. Economically, the country flourished. For two decades, Zimbabwe retained its status as a regional agricultural powerhouse and a robust manufacturing hub. Key industries thrived; Ziscosteel reached peak production levels of 1.2 million tonnes of liquid steel annually during the late 1980s and 1990s. Between 1980 and 1990, the local currency held strong at around Z2 to US1, backed by strong tobacco, steel, and agricultural exports.
Inflation stayed at a manageable average of around 10 percent. The newly empowered black population built stable lives—buying homes, educating their children, and accessing quality healthcare. Then came the turn of the millennium, and the foundation began to fracture. The unraveling had started in the late 1990s with unbudgeted payouts to war veterans, causing the currency to collapse and triggering the infamous “Black Friday” stock market crash, alongside nationwide power cuts and fuel shortages. By 2000, the panicked and chaotic land reform program plunged the nation into severe food insecurity, hyperinflation, widespread factory closures, crippling unemployment, and a historic exodus of citizens seeking survival abroad. Decades later, the nation is still struggling to recover from those structural shocks. How did a leader with such an impressive start transform into a figure associated with economic ruin and political repression?
The answer lies in the corrupting nature of prolonged power. Long stays in office do not bring stability or enduring progress. Instead, entrenched power breeds complacency, shifts focus entirely toward regime survival, dismantles independent state institutions, and encourages systemic corruption. Had Mugabe stepped down in 1990 or 1995, after fifteen years of historic achievements, common sense dictates he would be remembered today by the vast majority of Zimbabweans as the nation’s greatest statesman. Instead, an appetite for perpetual power ruined that narrative. His path stands as a clear warning to current and future leaders: step down while on top, or risk burning down what you built.
When leaders push to extend their tenure and dismantle term limits, they repeat the very mistakes that cost Zimbabwe so dearly. True leadership is not defined by how long one holds onto the steering wheel, but by knowing when to hand it over.
Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com
Source: Robert Mugabe: A cautionary tale of why a leader should leave office while on top
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