Tag: Zimbabwe

I have visited Zimbabwe twice in my life. I also once in 1988 met President Robert Mugabe whose people referred to as “Comrade Mugabe” as a way of identifying with him and his revolutionary and socialist pretensions. His Ghanaian wife Sally, a modest lady had unfortunately  died and he then married one of his typists, Grace Mugabe who is now derisively referred to as “Gucci Grace” on account of her love for shopping in high-end shops all over the world and buying designer products while her compatriots were suffering in the backwoods of her country. I was part of Nigeria’s delegation to the meeting of the Liberation Committee of the then Organisation of African Unity (OAU) followed by a meeting of the Commonwealth Foreign ministers committee which involved the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, Guyana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania. This latter committee was set up to mobilize financial sanctions against apartheid South Africa as part of pressures on the then racist regime to embrace democratic principles of non-racial majoritarian government. Nigeria operated on three fronts in its worthy leadership of black Africans against white settler regimes in Southern Africa. First, Nigeria was a frontline state along Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and later Mozambique even though Nigeria was thousands of miles away from Southern Africa. This was a mark of recognition of the role Nigeria was playing in the nationalist wars in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa itself not to mention the role the country had played in Zambia and helping stabilize Tanzania after a military rebellion in that country after independence. Secondly, Nigeria majorly funded the budget of the Liberation Committee of the OAU based in Dare salaam which was responsible for training military cadres of the various fighting forces of the liberation movements  in Southern Africa. Thirdly, Nigeria was a member of the Commonwealth Foreign Ministers Forum that sought to tighten the financial screws on South African businesses and government with the purpose of bringing down the economy of South Africa.

As for Zimbabwe itself, the role of Nigeria was decisive in its independence. The African nationalist movement there had been led by the Ndebele patriot, Joshua Nkomo, leader of Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) who physically towered above his contemporaries and the Reverend Ndabanigi Sithole, founder of rival Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) which was largely a party of the majority Shona people. Nkomo came from the minority Ndebele an offshoot of the South African Zulus who under their leader Lobengula ruled over the Shona majority before the adventurer Cecil Rhodes took over the country in the 1880s and named it Rhodesia after himself. So right from the beginning, Zimbabwean politics was plagued by tribal divisions. Sithole was later edged out by the much more ruthless and more educated Mugabe who had initially trained as a catholic priest. All efforts to unite the two rivals failed. In the meantime their adversary, Ian Smith declared what was then Southern Rhodesia unilaterally free from British control. The military government of Murtala Muhammed/Olusegun Obasanjo between 1976 and 1979 was right in the thick of events which eventually culminated in independence for Zimbabwe. Obasanjo once invited Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe to Dodan Barracks in Lagos and locked up the two combatants in a room to a shootout apparently jokingly saying whoever survived will lead Zimbabwe to independence. The two gentlemen formed what is now ZANU (PF) which was a union of Nkomo’s and Mugabe’s forces. But it was the decision of the Obasanjo government to nationalize British Petroleum and Barclays Bank in Nigeria in 1979 that forced Margaret Thatcher to concede independence to Zimbabwe under majority black rule with entrenched minority rights protected by the constitution in 1980.

Mugabe soon showed his ruthless hand when he accused the Ndebele of wanting to seize power. He unleashed his North Korean trained special forces on the Ndebele killing more than 20000 people and virtually destroyed Bulawayo the main town in Ndebeleland. In 1987, Mugabe did away with the constitution and proclaimed the country a republic with himself as president with wide array of powers. To wide jubilation, Mugabe seized white owned farms which was 90% of arable land in the country and distributed them to his party supporters who knew nothing about commercial agriculture. Agricultural production virtually evaporated and a country that exported agricultural produce suddenly became an importer. The mining sector producing cobalt and diamond was mismanaged with billions of dollars of revenue stolen. From that point on, the economy went down the slippery slope of collapse with the currency becoming worthless. At a point the currency in an unsustainable fashion was replaced with the American dollar becoming legal tender. This in a way exposed the total dependence of the country on external influence which was very hostile.

The European Union under British pressure applied sanctions on the country and the EU was later joined by the United States. This drove the country into the hands of China which could only do just enough to precariously prop up the country. Zimbabwe does not have oil, timber or copper which are the things China looks for in Africa. The suffering of the ordinary Zimbabwean has led to a quarter of the country’s population migrating largely to South Africa and the western world where like all immigrants in recent times have become victims of xenophobia. While this was going on Mugabe’s family particularly his wife Grace and their young children have amassed huge fortune which they exhibited on expensive jewellery and champagne parties in South Africa. Mugabe himself to the embarrassment of his people and other Africans has always turned up at every International Organisations’ summit including the UN to read speeches and sometimes missed his lines or dozed off while on the podium. He junkets annually to Singapore for weeks for medical check-up while millions of his people at home die of AIDS.

He has run a police state for 37 years and the people had no way of getting rid of him until now. He had wanted his wife, Grace to succeed him as president. The only obstacle to that scheme was his wily vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa who had been cabinet minister in several portfolios including finance before becoming chief of security and vice president. Mnangagwa was also responsible for Zimbabwe’s military promenade in to the free-for-all fight in the Congo during which time he allegedly made good for himself vast amount of looted diamonds. Mugabe summarily dismissed him as he had done to others before him. This time around things went awry. Mnangagwa mobilized his own supporters in the defence forces who moved in and detained the president.  In a typical coup, the military would have announced the formation of a new government but this army which couldn’t shoot straight prevaricated and their overfed and old officers marched around griming with the bedraggled old president as if they were acting a stage play. It was really an embarrassing sight. The army strangely claimed they had not staged a coup d’état but simply moved to arrest people around the president creating problems for the country. The veterans also said the old man was being taken advantage by a young woman. Everybody expected Mugabe to go. Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans demonstrated against him. They were promised the president would broadcast to the nation. A day before the broadcast ZANU (PF) expelled Mugabe and his wife and threatened an impeachment move against him in parliament.

After prevaricating for four days and following the beginning of impeachment proceedings in parliament, the old geek finally resigned. The hope of many of us Africans is that his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa would have learnt a lesson and he will not overstay his welcome.

As for me, my memory of Zimbabwe is that the country is an ungrateful country. At independence, Nigeria bought at 10 million pounds sterling, the only white owned newspaper, the HERALD as an independent gift. Since that time they have used the paper to ridicule and attack Nigeria. They always led opposition to any Nigerian candidate running for positions at international community. After all Nigeria did for her, there is no street in their capital named after a Nigerian leader or Nigeria itself whereas names like Kaunda and Nyerere are to be found. I remember the Babangida regime giving the country millions of dollars to host one important summit or the other in the 1980s. Now we have a joke of a military afraid to throw the blighter out and saying a coup is not a coup for fear of western or African criticism that are already fed up with Mugabe and ready to say good riddance to bad rubbish!