via Mugabe wallowing in delusions of grandeur – The Zimbabwe Independent April 1, 2016
“You just go to Zimbabwe now and ask the people whether I should stand down. They will be angry with you.”
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe’s remarks in an interview with Japanese journalists during his visit to the Asian country this week provided yet more evidence of how detached from reality and delusional our nonagenarian leader has become.
“You just go to Zimbabwe now and ask the people whether I should stand down. They will be angry with you,” Mugabe claimed in startling remarks to Japanese journalists.
This clearly showed that Mugabe is either residing on another planet or at the very least has his head stuck in the clouds. While it is common cause that Mugabe has delusions of grandeur — he thinks he is much greater, powerful and influential than he really is — his grandiose delusions or false beliefs based on a wrong interpretation of reality, have now become outrageous.
Delusional thoughts are sometimes a sign of mental illness, but in Mugabe’s case they just indicate how much he is labouring under self-deception trying to salvage his tattered legacy.
A few questions: who would want a leader who has destroyed his own economy and decimated his currency, bringing untold suffering to Zimbabweans through ruinous policies and gross mismanagement?
Indeed, who would want to be stuck with a leader who allowed diamonds worth US$15 billion to be looted at a time when the country is on its knees ravaged by company closures, job losses and poverty?
A leader who has a shocking record of grisly human rights abuses and killings of his own citizens — who wants such a leader?
The latest remarks by Mugabe, which are insulting to thousands of struggling Zimbabwean graduates who have been reduced to vendors and touts despite holding degrees, ranks right up there with his comical outburst in 2000 when he declared that no one could have managed the Zimbabwe economy better than him.
Someone should rescue Mugabe from the realms of delusionism. He seems to respect too much the ecology of his self-delusions!
Sycophancy
At a time youths are suffering from a plethora of challenges ranging from unemployment to gut-wrenching poverty, the Zanu PF Youth League in its wisdom or lack of it are organising a million-man march in solidarity with Mugabe, the author of the country’s economic collapse.
Addressing Zanu PF youths drawn from Mashonaland East province’s 23 constituencies at a rally held at Mbuya Nehanda Hall in Marondera last week, Youth League deputy secretary, Kudzai Chipanga said one million youths will storm Harare in the first week of May for the march.
“We have Vice-Presidents Joseph Msika and Simon Muzenda, who died while in power. What is wrong with Mugabe doing that? How can someone say he loves the President, while hating his wife or Chatunga (Mugabe’s son)?” Chipanga asked at the rally.
There you have it. Mugabe must die in power not because of his leadership qualities but simply to emulate Msika, Muzenda, Joshua Nkomo and John Nkomo in dying while in office.
It is this kind of impoverished thinking that show just how cancerous Zanu PF has become to the nations’ well-being and why we can never dream of economic recovery while this party which is riddled with corruption and incompetence remains at the helm.
Chipanga’s plans to march would be welcomed if it was to demand more jobs for youths or accountability for the looted diamonds, not for a leader who has not only ruined the country’s economy but has clearly overstayed his welcome by at least two decades!
As one angry reader responded to the remarks by Chipanga: “This is the end result of high unemployment in the country. Our youngsters out of boredom end up hallucinating and daydreaming pursuing useless activities like this.
“If Chipanga was my son I would lift him by the ears and beat him back to sanity.”
Relief
Reports that Government has backtracked on its directive that school levies be deposited into a Social Security Fund (SSF) will come as a relief not only to parents but the nation as a whole.
In a letter to heads of primary and secondary schools in Harare, provincial education director Christopher Kateera directed all schools to stop the implementation of the recommendations.
“You are hereby advised to halt the implementation of this recommendation in Harare province with immediate effect until further notice,” Kateera said.
It is clearly good riddance to bad rubbish as far as this ridiculous decision by Education minister Lazarus Dokora is concerned. For government to control school levy funds would have without doubt opened new floodgates of looting.
There however should be no “further notice” to this kind of nonsense as mentioned by Kateera in his missive. The idea should thrown into the dustbin and remain there.
Decay
The sad sight of National Railways of Zimbabwe workers going on strike after going more than a year without pay signals the massive failure by the clueless Zanu PF government.
Workers in Harare and Gweru downed tools on Tuesday this week to press for the 14 months salary they are owed. Even NRZ public relations manager Fanuel Masikati’s vague assurances that they are doing all they can to address the workers’ plight rings hollow.
This desperate state of affairs is evidence of appalling corporate governance failures by the useless NRZ management. That this decay spreads to parastatals such as Air Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe United Passenger Company and the Grain Marketing Board, to name but a few, shows that the government’s economic blueprint ZimAsset, hurriedly put together in 2013 without stakeholder consultation, is a pipedream not worth the paper it is printed on.
Futile censorship
The relics at the Censorship Board banned an award-winning documentary which chronicles the 2013 constitution-making process in ZimbabweThe documentary titled Democrats and featuring MDC-T secretary general Douglas Mwonzora and the ruling Zanu PF’s Paul Mangwana, who were both part of the constitution-making process, has won more than 15 international awards. Mangwana said the ban was justified as the documentary depicted President Robert Mugabe as a dictator.
However, their efforts are futile as the documentary is also available on video-sharing website YouTube.
It just goes to show that democracy remains a stranger to these Zanu PF apparatchiks. It also shows the failure by these demagogues to grasp the simple fact that thanks to the advent of technology, colonial relics such as the Censorship Board now belong to the museum!
short and sweet..
We read with interest the remarks by War Veterans chairman Chris Mutsvangwa attacking the cabinet decision to close down foreign companies who do not comply with indigenisation requirements.
“It is a plan to loot the country’s resources and we will not fold our hands. War veterans want a country that is open to business, that is attractive to investment from anyone and there is no need for us to slam doors in the faces of those who want to bring in new money,” Mutsvangwa said ahead of today’s deadline issued by Indigenisation minister Patrick Zhuwao.
“They (ministers) are parcelling out to each other money that should be going into the Consolidated Revenue Fund to finance their egoistic rush to build 50-roomed houses. Every minister wants to control some kind of levy. It has happened to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) with the creation of the Border Control Authority,”
Mutsvangwa makes valid points against the crude attempts by government to fundraise by arm twisting foreign companies.
However, this is a significant change in tune by Mutsvangwa who said in 2013 that the opaque indigenisation law that has spooked investors would give the country leverage to negotiate its resources.
Although Mutsvangwa has only had his Damascene moment after years of supporting the toxic policy, it is better late than never.
Mutsvangwa must therefore be commended for finally seeing the light.
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