LETTER FROM AMERICA: Jonathan Moyo: You are missing the point

SEVERAL months ago, my brother William Muchayi sent me a one sentence e-mail. It read thus: “Mutsvangwa: Mumori wehuchi wakoromoka mumuti.”

Last week, I was reflecting on the book by Basil Davidson, entitled: “African Genius.”

Both quotations above refer to the African Genius.

As we go to press, Professor Jonathan Moyo, Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education in Zimbabwe and chief trustee of the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (ZIMDEF), is appearing before a learned judge, opposing an affidavit by a Harare vendor to have him arrested on corruption charges.

He is being accused of abusing US$450 000 from ZIMDEF, an institution under his Ministry.

We must state at the beginning that Brother Moyo is not guilty until a judge says so, and maybe thrown into a jailhouse.

There are certain facts which are generally agreed upon.

Brother Moyo fears no one, except the devil.

He works for himself and God help those who have the misfortune of crossing his path.

There is no man in Zimbabwe, who has a greater propensity to hurt folks who have done him no harm, precisely for the reason of proving his transcendent powers.

A street fighter, he will fight anytime, day or night, he will throw dust even in the faces of those who might come to his defence. My Ghanaian Brother, George Ayiteyi called him an intellectual prostitute.

His arrogance knows no bounds, reaching the depth of the sublime, to the ridiculous.

In 2002, when he was appointed minister of information, he ordered Kingston’s Bookstore to remove my award-winning book, Letters from America, thrice published, and popular with students, from the store.

He then ordered a truck driver to deliver the remaining copies at my mother’s house.

Later, he told Funny Mushava, then editor of The Sunday Mail: “Either you go, or you remove Ken’s Letter from America from your columns.”

Mushava kept his dignity, but lost his job.

I had never met the Philistine brother, nor had I done him any harm.

That is why the accusations against him fit perfectly into the African Genius theory.

To repeat, the theory says that some forms of wickedness need no reply by victims. Nature has its way of giving folks what is due to them.

If the bee hunter is attacked by bees, and breaks his ribs in his fall from a tree, he is receiving only what he deserves.

I have not met or seen anybody who has shown sympathy with the Philistine brother over the charges.

His street fight bravado, in fact, breaks all the rules in the book.

An accused person should say nothing to the media to allow his attorney to craft a defence without prior prejudicial statements by the accused. If there is a sympathiser, he should declare himself, and I will pay for his lunch.

Moyo’s defence

His record has followed him, from Kenya and South Africa’s Witwatersrand University to Zimbabwe.

Moyo, and our readers have missed this important point: Nothing happens in Zimbabwe by chance.

When a man in Moyo’s position is brought to book, and The Herald newspaper brings its top journalists like Reason Wafawarova to the story, the matter has been thrashed out in the boardroom.

For the sake of clarity, if people like Sister Mandi Chimene roast the Vice President of the Republic, the details, even the syntax has been rehearsed in the boardroom.

Let us use the big words of which the Philistine brother is fond of. Surprisingly, he is lost to the fact that when the two forces collide, if the peristalsis factor fails to diffuse, an explosion occurs. Moyo seeks confrontation, generating explosions of his own making.

My information is that the accusations against Moyo, abuse of position, wastefulness, buying luxury cars for himself and his assistants, when they already had cars, fraudulent abuse of money, which he admits, and an attempt to “arrest” him were choreographed.

He allegedly awarded himself an interest free loan of US$24 000, a sum he called a “compassionate gift” for his daughter’s funeral expenses.

In his wisdom or lack thereof and intuitive street fighting matrix, he cursed out his accusers. Anybody who objects, or mentions his alleged despicable abuse of office, he called them “stinking tribalists and successionists.”

“You can say what you want, but I would rather be a Robin Hood than a cruel tribalist, murderer and United Nations identified cross border diamond thief.”

The United Nations report he refers to accused the Zimbabwe defence forces of looting diamonds in the Congo, while they were deployed there.

He exacerbates his position. “I object to (abuse of ZIMDEF funds allegations) in the strongest possible terms and I will fight to the bitter end to be left alone to fully discharge my responsibilities.”

At Madziva Teachers College graduation ceremony, the man tried to justify himself.

There was no need to publicise his defence to graduating teachers.

Secondly, allocating money under a false name fits the dictionary meaning of fraud.

Missing the point

The man has missed Mukuru’s modus operandi. When such news appears in The Herald, it has been approved by the President’s Office. When anti-corruption commissioners come to the Shake-Shake Building to interview the professor, surely Mukuru knows about it in advance. Nhasi mumori wehuchi wadonha mumuti. Tsvatu waro, waiti ndiwe mugoni.