After “The Party” insisted on implementating Resolution No. 1, which says Owner should not go anywhere anytime soon, debate has technically shifted to the modalities of executing the criminal act in the most seemingly legal way possible.
The hope of those vehemently opposed to the vandalisation of the constitution — who, thankfully are in the majority — is to scuttle it on the referendum bridge. And the wily Party is doing everything it can to ensure no referendum takes place.
This being a referendum against Owner and his ownership, from the way the architects of the project are so determined to resist it, it appears very clear that there is something they know, but they won’t tell us.
The latest argument that Muckraker has overheard is that “The People” don’t want any referendum. So, what is “The Party” to do — defy “The People”? It sounds like a real valid argument — otherwise “The Party” is ever ready to romp to victory any time. So much about “The People”!
Good, very good
After the welcome State of the Nation Address (Sona) power cut that infuriated Owner & Co, heads have started rolling, hopefully just metaphorically.
“The person who switched off electricity while the President was speaking will regret the day he was born,” threatened one chap whose CV is solidified by his role as a Gukurahundi foreman.
But if you ask Muck, he will tell you that it is unfair to blame anyone other than Owner himself because he is directly responsible for the rot. What happened — thankfully for the second time in as many years — just goes to show the state of affairs in the country … rotten!
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Why would those directly responsible for this sorry state of things want to be insulated from the effects of their own criminal dereliction of duty? All power cuts trigger that bitter after taste in the mouths of all Zimbos as they remind them of the Gwanda Solar Projects, whose funds went to buy dozens of pairs of shoes for a certain criminal. Until that criminal is punished, no one else should be victimised for a power cut — which is quite normal, and acceptable, in this country.
It emerged that the (non) event was running on a generator, with power from the unreliable national power utility acting as back-up. Is there any better way of confirming failure than this?
By the way, what became of the 2MW solar plant that we were told our Chinese benefactors in-built into this “donation” that is the new Parliament building, to make it power self-sufficient? Who said lies have very short legs?
“Parliament will ensure timely payment to the service provider contracted for the generator service as well as for the provision of adequate fuel to power the system throughout the duration of the event,” reads a leader from Parliament to Local Government permanent secretary John Bhasera. This emphasis on “timely payment” tells the whole story.
Service providers now know how all government entities have become notorious for inordinate payment delays — if ever the payments come at all! As for Parliament, remember the MPs themselves are struggling to get their allowances and Constituency Development Funds?
It is just a matter of warped priorities. Only earlier in the week, the same Owner was donating a top-of-the-range car and US$10 000 to a comedian … how many top-notch generators can that amount buy? Or solar systems?
Not to mention all other wasteful expenditures that border on outright looting of public resources.
We go around appearing generous when we are not meeting the cost of even the very basic of services … and for that incompetence we want to be rewarded with term extension!
Meanwhile, we hope the welcome power cut, which became the news itself instead of what Owner said in his address, was not a silent protest by someone against the many ugly things in this country.
According to the late American political scientist and anthropologist James C. Scott, in his many books, including The Weapons of the Weak, it is a collection of thousands of such small acts of rebellion and protest that lead to a revolution.
We hope this was not revenge for the cowardly two petrol-bombings that took place in the early hours of the same day. It could just as well have been another ploy to divert Zimbos’ attention from these serious terrorist acts against those ready to defend the constitution.
Induced patriotism
This week, Cde Tawanda Nyambirai remembered that like Owner, he is also a lawyer, and decided to be dutiful in playing his part in defending the “constitutional” amendment to the constitution, to allow Owner to retain his certainly unwelcome ownership a little longer.
Cde Nyambirai joined the Nutty Professor in pushing the argument that there is nothing untoward about elongating Owner’s current final term to anything.
Zimbos ganged up to hurl insults at him. Muck won’t be mean enough to join those excoriating the peripatetic businessman, knowing that his newly-found sense of patriotism might not be entirely spontaneous, but rather induced.
“Upon being reminded that I lost my farms under the First Republic, the President directed that my farms be restored,” Cde Nyambirai told us in an X post in April.
“I followed the prescribed legal process and, indeed, the title to my farms was restored after 20 years. We are now in the final stages of taking back possession.”
When the case of the four farms went through the courts, Cde Nyambirai (and his firms) had lost it. During the acrimonious exchanges, there had been insinuations to the effect that the brother had been made a front by some embattled white farmers who were fleeing the country in the aftermath of the oft-violent land seizures which started in the year 2000.
Talk of birds of a feather … haven’t we heard someone openly bragging about how he protected some white commercial farmers in the Midlands province during the land reform programme?
It is therefore in Cde Nyambirai’s interest that Owner hangs in there for as long as he can lest the demons of the First Republic pay him another unwelcome visit. For now, the onus is on him to at least be seen to be patriotic enough in situations like this, because aloofness is a very serious crime within “The Party”.
Cde Nyambirai’s views elicited lots of robust pushback from lawyers of various hues … with some suggesting that this is what “The Party” usually does to test the waters before taking any definite step. After collecting all the legal views shared by the various lawyers, it would submit them to their man, who is already enjoying an unconstitutional extension to his term of office, so that he can start preparing his own ruling in readiness for any challenge to their mischief!
The problem of having too many lawyers in your politics! Our current madness once more reminds Muck of a passage in George Greenfield’s book A Smattering of Monsters.
“The only answer was to shrug and smile, and recall the old story of how an architect and the lawyer argued over which was the older profession. The architect brought in the Book of Genesis to endorse his claim: God created the world in six days out of chaos.
“Granted,” said the lawyer. “But who created the chaos?”
