The Sunday Mail
SAY whatever you want about Dambudzo Marechera — that he was an alcoholic, a bum and irritatingly petulant, eccentric, irascible and vulgar, among many other foibles — but the man was a literary god.
Through his pen, which he wielded like a magic wand, the creative genius could conjure an alternative universe through which society was able to objectively look at itself — warts and all.
For Bishop Lazi, the six-word opening sentence to his book, “House of Hunger” (1978), was probably the grandest and most powerful introduction to any literary work he has ever come across.
The opening sentence, “I got my things and left”, was seemingly an incantation to cast a spell on the curious reader to dive deeper into this riveting work of art.
Sengezo Tshabangu
“I got my things and left. The sun was coming up. I couldn’t think where to go . . . ,” he continued.
The Bishop found himself reflecting on these words after Nelson Chamisa, the CCC leader, or former leader — whatever suits your fancy — left his barely two-year-old party and its members in a huff.
He was tired, he said, of the “sewer pond politics” that has characterised his party, which is riven by deadly factional fights, especially ever since its chastising defeat to ZANU PF in last year’s harmonised elections.
This fulfils the prophesy that Bishop Lazi made before last year’s plebiscite, when he foretold the three consequential outcomes of the polls: the re-emergence of a renewed and rejuvenated ZANU PF as the dominant political force in the land; the ultimate inexorable death of Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC, which had mutated to MDC-T under Douglas Mwonzora; and the beginning of the end of Nelson Chamisa’s pet political project, CCC, whose foundations were built on sand.
The meltdown in the opposition over the past four months — precipitated by Sengezo Tshabangu, a surrogate of the much wiser and experienced political hands in the CCC (read Welshman Ncube, et al), who have been able to demonstrate Chamisa’s folly of creating a structureless and formless political movement — indicates that the fledgling political project is now, to all intents and purposes, dead in the water.
A psychotic God complex
And, as Chamisa prepares to launch his new political project, one that he hopes would be created in his own image and largely unencumbered by the baggage of tracing its parentage to the MDC and its subsequent mutations, the Bishop would like you to know that this envisaged political enterprise is also doomed before it even takes off.
This is precisely because it carries one fatal flaw — Chamisa himself.
Well, the mistake that Chamisa’s starry-eyed legion of supporters make is to assume that those who questioned his leadership style in CCC, whom they now mendaciously and conveniently claim to be ZANU PF agents, are the ones responsible for the opposition party’s current terminal decline.
They clearly are not.
Time and again, the Bishop has been reminding you how the young politician, as the then-MDC organising secretary, wrecked Tsvangirai’s political campaign in 2013 by claiming that God had told him he was going to win the elections and, therefore, did not have to overexert himself.
To Tsvangirai’s dismay, the exact opposite happened. As outlandish as this claim might sound, it was later revealed by Promise Mkwananzi, CCC’s current spokesperson, who was the Youth Assembly secretary-general then.
But this trait worryingly continues to shape and define Chamisa’s political persona, including his leadership.
Five months before last year’s watershed election (on March 10, 2023), publisher Trevor Ncube, whose papers have largely been the opposition’s mouthpiece, warned in a tell-all thread on X (formerly Twitter) of the fault lines that were developing and widening in the CCC — barely two months after its formation — as senior leaders in the party expressed their disquiet over his leadership style and seemingly psychotic political delusions.
“What people very close to Nelson say to me concerns me . . . ,” said Trevor in his opening thread.
“These people say they have given up on Nelson but can’t tell him. That he is not a leader. That he is not a democrat . . . These people say Nelson does not want to be accountable.
“That he feels threatened by people such as Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, Job Sikhala, Hopewell Chinono, etc. Those who remain around him do so because they see him as a ticket to their own political ambitions . . . ,” he continued.
“These people are frightened by the dreams that Nelson shares of him hearing from God. Dreams of him being told he will be at State House until old age.
“Most fervent Christians hear from God but there is always purity to what God says to us.”
Phew!
Dear reader, as Bishop Lazarus writes this, the thread has since attracted more than 1,1 million views.
This revelation, especially coming from someone ostensibly close to Chamisa, was, and still is, a peek into the psychotic delusions that drive the man who thinks he is anointed to eventually lead the people of Zimbabwe.
It has shaped the God complex that makes Chamisa believes that he, like the pope, is infallible and has the carte blanche to do whatsoever he pleases without being questioned. This has naturally put him at odds with his fellow comrades in the opposition.
God’s assignment
What continues to frighten the Bishop, however, is the inference in Chamisa’s letter last week, which pronounced the last rites on the CCC, that he was given the divine “assignment” to lead Zimbabwe.
“As you may be aware, the CCC idea was an idea we prayerfully conceived. The original idea meant to place Our God and the Citizens at the centre of all decision-making. This test was not passed and the purpose was not served,” he said in his January 24 statement.
“Our God has opened a new way. Unfortunately, the road is narrow and I have to meet the demands of my assignment. The citizens of Zimbabwe will be set free from the hands of oppression.”
He makes it seem as if God always carries an opposition party political card.
In Isaiah 55: 8-9, the Lord says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Matthew 5: 43-47 adds: “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?”
An impossible quest
Chamisa’s foibles are a chink in his armour that will always make his quest incredibly difficult, if not impossible.
ZANU PF, already on the resurgence, has handsomely profited from the implosion in the opposition.
After winning 177 National Assembly seats in the August 23-24 elections, the ruling party has since added seven seats — Lupane East, Binga North, Mabvuku-Tafara, Beitbridge West, Bulawayo South, Nketa, Cowdray Park — after the December 9 by-elections.
In all likelihood, it also looks set to bag the bulk, if not all, the six National Assembly seats up for grabs in this week’s by-elections, which include Mkoba North, Seke, Goromonzi West and Pelandaba-Tshabalala, Zvimba East and Chegutu West.
If only Chamisa knew what he will be up against in the 2028 elections, he would rather quit politics, or join ZANU PF, or consider other productive and profitably pursuits. Kikkiki.
You would be hopelessly naïve to think that the mess created in our towns and cities due to the paralysis in the opposition will not prompt the Government into action.
Sooner, rather than later, something is going to give.
Bishop out!
