The Sunday Mail
Up until a few months ago the prospect of my meeting with President Mugabe was overwhelmingly daunting and unnerving.
I needed to muster significant courage before I could engage him. It was not because of anything that His Excellency had done or would do to me. It was not because of anything that I had done.
So what was the problem, you may ask?
It is a fact that I am the son of President Mugabe’s sister. Yes, Bob’s my uncle.
A nephew is an integral part of any family. The nephew brings order to the family during disputes. A nephew is blood that has the advantage of being an outsider; a permanent family consultant.
Up until recently, I was terrified by the fact that I am related to President Mugabe. I would seek to downplay this relationship.
Those who interacted with me know that I made significant mention of the fact that my father was from Malawi; referring to myself as muBrandaya.
Close friends, like Kasukuwere, however knew that I have only been to Malawi once. They know that the house that I built is in Zvimba. My farm is in Zvimba. My home is in Zvimba. Rukuvhute rwangu rwuri kwaZvimba.
I have always conducted my politics from Zvimba. Even as I conduct field research, I always site Zvimba as my study site. So, I am a Zvimbaian. Ndiri muzukuru weGushungo.
My issue was not with being a nephew of the individual known as Robert Gabriel Mugabe. Similarly, I have no issue with being a nephew to Donatos Gabriel Mugabe, Albert Gabriel Mugabe and David Gabriel Mugabe.
It is when you then situate Robert Gabriel Mugabe in his institutional being as the First Citizen that an issue arises.
All of a sudden, my role as the nephew goes beyond being dunzvi to the family of Gabriel Mugabe, Chatungu and Karigamombe.
My role transcends from being the nephew of the Chidziva Clan and the wider Gushungo people. I become a “First Nephew”.
As with all roles, that role comes with responsibilities. In this case the responsibilities are onerous, they are arduous, and they are responsibilities to a whole nation.
It was when I embraced my responsibilities that the weight of being related to President Mugabe became bearable.
The responsibility is a welcome honour and privilege, albeit onerous.
The Zhuwao Brief has enabled me with another opportunity through which I discharge my obligations to the nation.
We will this week discuss the upcoming by-election within the context of the requirement to relocate vendors that have been operating in the undesignated streets of Zimbabwe’s urban areas.
This week’s conversation is also located within the context of the abuse of access to the First Family, and in particular the First Lady. This abuse of access is being conducted under the guise of Zanu-PF.
Last week, vendors who are operating within undesignated locations were given seven days to relocate to designated sites.
Conversations about the need to restore some order in Harare’s business district have been going on for a while. In some instances, opposition activists have taken to social media bemoaning the deterioration of order in urban areas.
The Zhuwao Brief sought to dig deeper into this issue.
A couple of weeks ago I went to the MTN rank in central Johannesburg and noticed that the issue of street vending was worse there than in Harare.
For a while, I felt better until I came to my senses and remembered that Zimbabweans can never be compared to South Africans. We are better educated.
Zimbabweans would never conduct a protest in which they vow to stop their children from going to school because they do not want to pay for electricity.
Zimbabwean are so clear about their African identity that they would never burn a fellow black African alive and still want to consider a white man more African than a Ugandan.
Zimbabweans fought an actual liberation war against live white oppressors who fought back with guns, gunships and napalm.
Zimbabweans do not need to take down statures of dead white people to validate their revolutionary credentials.
As I reflected more on the mushrooming of illegal vending, I found that the issue could be located from several events.
When the First Lady toured the country last year, she implored law enforcement agents to treat licensed vendors with respect and stop confiscating their wares.
Unfortunately, her noble pleas were hijacked by people who sought to extort vendor and market stalls by claiming access to the First Lady.
Soon, a bunch of unscrupulous speculative political entrepreneurs (SPEs) sought to misappropriate the sanctuary that the First Lady had provided by demanding protection fees from the vendors and market stall operators.
These SPEs claimed they had access to the First Lady. The same crooks and vagabonds went to the extent of threatening law enforcement agents such that by-laws relating to vending could not be enforced.
As a result, the number of illegal vendors grew. That growth also provided an expansion of the base of vendors that could be extorted.
This resulted in active encouragement of illegal vending by the extortionists.
Attempts by Zanu-PF’s Commissar to quietly rebuke the extortionists resulted in intensification of the cacophony about the so-called Generation 40.
The confusion around the candidates for the Harare East by-election was engineered to focus the attention of the leadership away from the abuse of vendors that was being perpetrated by crooks and charlatans.
The Zhuwao Brief of May 17, 2015 highlighted the emergence of this phenomenon and sought to bring these criminals to order. It also addressed the alleged misdemeanours of a garrulous uncle of mine so that he could better protect the image of the President.
Unfortunately, many people focused on the rebuke coming from a nephew to an uncle, such that the main thesis of that Zhuwao Brief went unnoticed.
As Zanu-PF resolved the engineered confusion of candidates in Harare East, the issue of vending in undesignated sites became clearer.
Victims of extortion started coming forward because they could now see that their tormentors were paper tigers without any real power.
The long arm of the law started to reach out towards the alleged criminals.
This past week, Harare Metropolitan Province authorities requested vendors to relocate to designated sites. Those authorities include the Provincial Joint Operations Command for Harare which has, amongst its members, the head of the Presidential Guard.
Harare’s law enforcement agents have clearer access to State House. As such, they can fearlessly fulfil their mandate of restoring order.
Several Zanu-PF members, supporters and sympathisers have questioned the wisdom of restoring order in urban areas a few days before the June 10 by-elections.
A number of these colleagues are foreign-based and may, therefore, not have a deeper appreciation of the situation on the ground.
Despite going towards elections, a ruling party has the obligation to do the correct thing at all times. Vending in undesignated locations is not only illegal but poses danger to life and property.
President Mugabe always quotes one of the lessons that he learnt from President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana: Never sacrifice principle on the altar of expedience.
Infrastructure is being constructed along Harare’s Simon Mazorodze Road to enable nurturing of micro and small-scale enterprises. Such infrastructure will protect vendors from abuse; whether it is abuse by extortionists abusing Zanu-PF’s name or those abusing the authority of law enforcement agents.
As we head towards the by-elections, what does Zanu-PF have to offer? Zanu-PF has been talking of Zim-Asset for a year and a half now. Zanu-PF has even talked about the accelerated implementation of Zim-Asset.
Everyone agrees that Zim-Asset is a good plan. Will Zanu-PF be able to fulfil Zim-Asset’s objectives, goals and targets? As people vote in the by-elections, can they put their faith in Zanu-PF to deliver?
For Zanu-PF to deliver on its promises, it must have a clean leadership. It PF needs a leadership that focuses on delivery.
Zanu-PF’s leadership must not engineer crises as bases for looting, corruption and abuse of authority.
The Zhuwao Brief submits that Zanu-PF is in a phase of cleansing. Zanu-PF is in detoxification – ridding itself of toxic elements.
The events leading to Zanu-PF’s 6th Congress addressed the issue of factionalism and successfully reconsolidated focus under a unitary centre of authority.
Factionalism had enabled unscrupulous and corrupt leaders to abuse the nation for personal enrichment. Factionalism masked corruption and abuse of authority.
Restoration of order in Zimbabwe’s urban areas demonstrates that Zanu-PF is moving into the second phase of detoxification.
Zanu-PF will jettison all corrupt leaders. If the ruling party could dispense with a Vice-President, it can dispense with any errant member.
There are no sacred cows. If you are toxic, stop it.
I conclude by going back to the responsibilities that I have as a “First Nephew”.
As I concluded an interview with Chris Maroleng on eNCA’s “Africa 360” in July 2013, I indicated that the Mugabe family had lost Robert Gabriel Mugabe to the nation.
He is no longer exclusively for the Karigamombe family and the Gushungo Clan. He is a national asset.
To those of us who are members of the family, his relatives within the Gushungo Clan, and his relatives in the Zanu-PF family, I say that we have the same onerous and arduous responsibility to the nation to protect Robert Gabriel Mugabe as a national asset.
As the Zanu-PF family, let us have a leadership and membership that is beyond reproach. We must not be a Party that alienates people because of the errant behaviour of a few misguided elements.
We are duty-bound to exercise the highest form of ethical behaviour. We have a responsibility to be free from corruption. We must never abuse the authority that has been granted to us by the people of Zimbabwe.
It is a heavy responsibility. It is not easy. It must be done. This responsibility is more onerous if you carry the same totem as President Mugabe. MadziGushungo must behave themselves to protect President Mugabe.
Ndini muzukuru ndataura. Pasi nembavha. Pasi nehuwori. Icho!
Patrick Zhuwao is chair of the Zhuwao Institute, an economics, development and research think tank focused on integrating socio-political dimensions into business and economic decision-making, particularly strategic planning. He can be reached at [email protected]
