THIS week, Zimbabweans woke up to shocking news on the front page of the Herald, the newspaper many generations have relied on for accurate, balanced news.
“Our people come first,” screamed the headline, quoting the country’s current owner. The man was in Mozambique this week, taking a deserved break from the tiring exertions of cutting ribbons and collecting rubbish on random Fridays.
Across the nation, people asked each other what this headline was all about. Which people were these that suddenly come first?
Surely, President Emmerson Mnangagwa could not have been talking about the ordinary people of Zimbabwe. Those have always been at the bottom of his list of priorities.
He has more important issues on top of his list, such as the hard work of making his opponents more popular by banning their rallies and making activists more prominent by arresting them for no reason.
It was later clarified that by “our people”, the President was merely referring to his sons and his cronies. Everyone else was urged to go about their daily business as usual.
Let’s just donate him It was a successful visit to Mozambique, the President’s minions announced.
“His Excellency, the President has been granted the Freedom of the City of Maputo. The fraternal relationship between our two nations cannot be overemphasized,” said Nick Mangwana, a likeable man who just happens to have one of the world’s most unfortunate jobs.
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It means that our owner has distinguished himself not only locally, but on the global stage. According to the Herald of absolute facts, the award was befitting, as the President “has been leading the renewal of towns and cities in Zimbabwe”.
We thank the people of Maputo for this accolade. Since they like our leader so much, we pray that they can go even further and grant the man permanent residency and a quiet spot on the beach in Vilanculos. We are willing to donate him.
History lecture Still in Mozambique, we once again doff our hats to Rueben Barwe, a promising young journalist with the ZBC, one of the finest television stations in the Southern Hemisphere. His coverage of the state visit was, yet again, of the highest quality, which is delightful to see from such a greenhorn in the media field.
Barwe made sure that we were all well informed about the success of the visit, but delving into a customary lengthy lecture on how Mozambique and Zimbabwe enjoy relations “that date back to the days of the liberation struggle”.
We were also told that “the President lived for several years in Mozambique”, a piece of breaking news that we were all not aware of before this week.
He then also mentioned how his boss spent the rest of the day touring a gas plant in Maputo and the Beluluane Industrial Park.
However, unpatriotic malcontents hoping that this will inspire our leaders to build similar infrastructure at home are advised to stop dreaming. Government officials wish to remind the nation that our leaders only go on such tours for entertainment and per diems.
Anyway, what is so special about Maputo’s magnificent US$275 million Catembe bridge, suspended 60 metres above the water, when we have the mighty Karanda bridge?
Yellow fever Back in Harare, it was heartwarming to see our parliament tackling the most pertinent issues, led by the Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Mudenda.
In a time of rising prices, a war in Europe that is making it worse, corruption, the drought and Covid-19, the Speaker made a ruling on the most critical issue of the day: the colour of the clothes worn by those treasonous opposition MPs coming back into the House.
Joseph Chinotimba, a Zanu PF MP known for his respect for his fashion taste, complained that some MPs had come into parliament in yellow. First, Mudenda said there would be no problem with yellow if there was no “CCC” on them. He then later changed his mind, and then ruled that nobody should come into parliament dressed in yellow.
At this rate, the colour yellow will soon be banned. We will remove it from our flag, where it supposedly stands for the yellow minerals. It would be fitting to drop it, since all the gold is disappearing to Dubai in handbags.
Traitorous drivel Many in the party will have been dismayed to read an article in the Sunday Mail saying people who work for government must perform.
According to the paper, “over a third of our taxes go towards civil service staff costs”, a reminder that we, taxpayers, are the bosses of everyone who works in the government.
“So we all want to see these large numbers of people earning their money, and giving us value for what we pay them. There was a time when all a civil servant really had to do was turn up for work on time each day and breathe. Those days are long gone,” the newspaper’s editorial said.
All patriots around the country must demand the immediate arrest of whoever wrote this traitorous drivel. Who exactly are they targeting? It may look today like they are talking about low-level civil servants, like the ever-angry bunch at Makombe Building.
But we know where such mischief will end. Soon, detractors will use these things to ask if our owners are “giving us value for what we pay them”. Those questions lead to chaos.
New MPs for what? Muckraker is unhappy to hear all this talk in the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) calling for younger candidates to replace old timers in the next elections.
Some people say opposition MPs who have been in parliament for too long must now let go.
“It is time we change our MPs. Some of them have stayed too long,” one supporter said.
But were we not told this is a new party? Even journalists are saying so, and we all know journalists never lie to readers. How is a new party complaining about “our” MPs staying too long? People are being bought by Zanu PF to demand change.
The likes of Willias Madzimure, Innocent Gonese, Murisi Zwizwai and others may have been in parliament for two decades now. But if an MP first came to parliament under the MDC in 2000, should they stand again in 2023 under CCC, they must be accepted as a new candidate. It is a new party after all, is it not?
Besides, why should people expect African politicians to retire? What would they do with themselves?
