The Sunday Mail
Dr Obert Moses Mpofu
There shall come a time when those among us that do not share the same convictions as ZANU PF will realise that Zimbabwe is all we have.
There is no other country that we will have or inherit.
This is all there is.
There shall come a time when everyone will see and appreciate that ZANU PF is, has and will always be, the way and the path to achieving, not only economic prosperity, but total emancipation. When my party ZANU PF freed this country from the jaws and bondage of our colonial masters, the intention was to never have our beloved country suffer from oppression again.
However, this has become the major intention of our detractors.
Our detractors — working in cahoots with the less wise — amongst us are bent on ensuring that we do not enjoy the fruits of our freedom, which we fought for and endured many sacrifices to achieve. Now that Zimbabwe is independent, forging ahead towards prosperity, our detractors are now more than ever making concerted efforts aimed at destroying us.
On top of the Western-sponsored opposition parties, both from within and outside our borders, our democracy has been facing and suffering from relentless attacks.
Sanctions have also been deployed as the preferred weapon of choice to cripple our economy, with the hope of having our own people turn on us, but this again has been to no avail.
We continue to march on towards Vision 2030 and economic prosperity with the burden of sanctions weighing heavy on us. Do not get me wrong, I am not against the idea of having opposition parties within our midst.
By all means, please let our people that differ with us in terms of political ideological convictions come together and form their own parties.
However, let all and any political parties that are formed in this land be ones capable of being patriotic.
We need a patriotic opposition movement and not these puppets and agents of our detractors.
Surely, we cannot have an opposition that calls for sanctions, day in and day out. Their intention is clearly to destroy this our beloved country.
This is why the electorate fully rejected such unpatriotic opposition political parties in the just-ended harmonised elections.
My party, ZANU PF, has been given a full mandate by the people following the last elections and our President, Dr ED Mnangagwa is continuing with the implementation of various developmental programmes.
Those that are still in election mode and are imagining another election should not be taken seriously and would do themselves good by snapping out of the utopia they are currently existing in.
There will be no election rerun whatsoever, as ZANU PF and President Mnangagwa clearly and resoundingly won the just-ended election.
Whatever our political differences as a people, Zimbabwe must and should always come first.
Those who have seen sense have accepted President Mnangagwa’s call for dialogue for the benefit of our people and have joined the POLAD platform — which will most likely be continued in this second term of the Second Republic. We all need to rejoice at the economic recovery efforts being implemented by my party’s Government under the stewardship of His Excellency, President Mnangagwa, who has set forth an ambitious programme to ensure that Zimbabwe becomes an upper-middle-income economy by 2030.
Already, we are accelerating towards the attainment of such a feat.
In spite of the constant barrage of sanctions and all efforts by our detractors to end us — our beloved Zimbabwe still stands — more than 20 years after the opposition invited sanctions upon its own people.
All the same, what I am certain of is that, my party, ZANU PF, forever endures.
Our friends from the east, particularly China, have indeed shown us that it can be done. Economic emancipation and total freedom of our people can be attained even without the West.
As a matter of fact, some of the programmes that we implemented that were designed by the West such as ESAP are responsible for our plight.
ESAP essentially decimated our economy during the 90s and we have not been the same.
Nevertheless, great lessons were learnt and NEVER again!
Whilst we shall pursue the engagement and reengagement drive, we shall do so with caution, wary of who is willing to act in good faith and be our partners for growth and who is not.
You see, we are at a moment in time and history where we have to be honest with ourselves as to the trajectory that we will set for our people.
My party, ZANU PF, being inclined towards the people and being a mass party, will always put Zimbabwe and its people first.
Trust in this our tried and tested brand of leadership to ensure that total economic transformation and the improvement of our people’s livelihoods will be achieved. Already, we seem to have stumbled on a formula that works.
Projects that had long been forgotten such as the Lake Gwayi-Shangani project and the Zambezi Water project are — after so many decades — being completed owing to the vision of President Mnangagwa and my party’s determination and inclination towards seeing our people through to prosperity.
To add on, it seems that Zimbabwe is the only country in the region which is energy secure owing to the recent completion of Hwange Units 7 and 8 as well as the refurbishment of the Kariba South hydro-power plant.
The majority of the country’s most important roads such as the Beitbridge-Harare-Chirundu Highway are getting the much-awaited attention as they are being dualised and already there has been immense progress and not to talk of the recently completed airport expansion project, which has made the Robert Mugabe International Airport truly a world-class marvel and has improved the country’s connectivity.
For the first time perhaps in our country’s history, we are so food secure that we have started exporting surplus grain to our neighbouring countries.
This fairytale is so picturesque that, Zimbabwe is now even exporting wheat, yes wheat! This is such a pleasant surprise and a welcome development.
All this is evidence that my party — ZANU PF — liberated this nation simply because of its love for the country and our people.
National pride is what drives our party as it toils to ensure that the needs of the people are met.
However, Zimbabwe is not for ZANU PF or its supporters alone, it is for all of us. We need to not only protect our country, but we need to do right by it.
Trust should be given in my party — as ZANU PF has always done what is right for its people.
It does not matter the costs, but our people have always been the centre of all our policies. Our beloved country is under sanctions simply because we chose to take back our land and give it back to our people.
Nowhere else in the world has there been a programme as unique and empowering as out Fast-Track Land Reform Programme.
It stands as the marvel of the whole world and up till this date, we are inundated with requests from counterparts who want to learn how we did it.
As we move forward under the Government of President Mnangagwa and the ZANU PF party, may we always remember that whatever we do as Zimbabweans, should and must always be for our beloved country and its people, in their diversity, for ZANU PF leaves no one and no place behind.
Dr Obert Moses Mpofu is an academic and the Secretary General of ZANU PF. He writes in his own capacity.
