Dear Mr President,
I am a Zimbabwean journalist, turning 47 years this year. It is dawning on me as I interact with family, colleagues and the broader society here at home and in many other parts of Africa that I am no longer the young and bundle of energy journalist I used to be many years back.
Time does take its toll on all of us.
While I still have a decade or so to work and run around, I equally realise that time is fast moving, that I need to prepare for my retirement and rest and pursue other interests in life, which are professionally and personally fulfilling.
I am realising that, in many ways, we become victims of what we have always done or what we think we should be doing.
This is not to make any point about what your own plans are, but a reminder of how important it is to think about life in other ways than one.
To begin to imagine life differently from the usual, it should be far difficult for you as a politician, a hero of the liberation struggle, a survivor of many challenges in your political path and as a national leader seated in Chancellor Avenue.
Like you, sometimes I spend days seated on a desk, visiting communities in many parts of Africa, interacting with fellow journalists, and of course family.
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I realise that within my very limited world I have some privileges, one being a job and an opportunity to see the world and that sometimes when I speak on societal needs, I may do so from a point of ignorance.
This is due to these very little privileges.
I now make it a point to walk the streets, talk to the market women and taxi drivers, and see for myself what our societies are facing.
At the back of my mind is a fear of detachment, thinking and acting out of context. I wonder how it is for you, Mr President.
What is your appreciation of the social or public pulse in Zimbabwe, which informs you about what your people are going through, what they feel and their expectations of your government and leadership?
I fully appreciate that you have a government machinery and system at your disposal, and that you can get data or information as quickly as you ask.
But is the machinery or system willing to tell you the truth, present reality as your people see it, or there is so much wanting to please you that the Zimbabwe you now live in and lead is shaped by your bureaucrats, who fear disappointing you and would rather say the good and leave out the bad and ugly?
Is your reality not shaped by the interests of the bureaucrats feathering their nests at the expense of your vision?
In my small world of working behind a desk, travelling, sitting in conference rooms, visiting parliament committee rooms and government offices, I have realised that what leaders easily suffer from is alienation.
And I ask again, how connected are you with the realities that your people are facing?
This, however, is not the reason why I write.
I write to express my view and possibly pour out my heart about what I think Zimbabwe needs, more so on the question of leadership.
As a national leader, I will avoid addressing you directly as that is discourteous, but I will express my views on the concept of leadership and the pitfalls that Africa finds itself in, Zimbabwe included.
Need to avoid a slave mentality
Mr President, Africa has had the misfortune of being led in many ways by people with a slave leadership mentality.
Those, who had a free mentality like Thomas Sankara, the Burkinabe, and the likes of Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese, were quickly dispatched by the ever-menacing neo-colonialism.
Africa’s heroes are dead and what Africa is left with at most are pretenders who signal left yet turning right.
A slave mentality in leadership is a failure to look forward and always looking backward. Slave leaders have a sense of entitlement. They say I deserve to be where I am. I suffered to be where I am, and because I suffered for this leadership position, it is my right to lead you.
Slave leaders do not build bridges to pass on leadership or even to engage with those they see as rivals, rather they construct durawalls to keep others outside and protect what they have and not to share or broaden what is available.
Slave leaders do not groom successors, rather they go around harming and dismissing and chasing away those with potential to succeed them.
You are a victim of the slave mentality leadership of the past leader, the late Robert Mugabe, Mr President.
The former president not only chased you away, but sought to harm you and he only left power at the point of the gun. He led Zimbabwe for 37 years and failed to groom nor mentor a new leadership.
He left your party, Zanu PF and country in turmoil. Africa suffers from slave leadership mentality, which do not see beyond themselves and cynically desire to die with the country and everyone else.
About leadership
Leadership is about something worthy sacrificing for and not living for.
Mr President, you demonstrated leadership at an early age, joining the liberation struggle and facing the hangman’s noose for your political beliefs.
You and many others contributed to and delivered a free Zimbabwe.
It is possible again that for a country now so fearful and intimidated by its political leadership, you Mr President, can once again deliver Zimbabwe, by being a forward-looking leader, who will mentor a new leadership that will take over from you.
Zimbabwe has suffered under the weight of the errors of its political leadership, some of which you are working to resolve, including the Gukurahundi genocide.
Zimbabwe now desires a leadership that is not so much about wielding power but passing the nation to the next generation.
Success, Mr President, is not when as a people are dependent on you but rather when we stand on what you build and define our own future.
Slave mentality leaders want dependency and a people who praise them all day. Yet leadership should not be about power, but empowerment as none of us lives forever.
As this is your last constitutional term, we must be seeing the new leadership emerging in Zanu PF and in the opposition. We desperately need you to encourage, mentor and give room for new leaders to emerge in your party and across the whole political space.
Every human being is endowed with leadership capacity and it is not a bad thing to desire leadership, but something inborn in all human beings.
When you lead us you are leading leaders in our own right and spaces, and you are leading leaders with as much capacity to take over from you.
We desire to be led through and not over us.
We desire mentorship and grooming and not domination. A leadership that does not produce other leaders is a genetically modified leadership (GMO) that cannot produce seeds.
What we, therefore, see in Africa with the coups in West Africa, political upheavals in many countries, more so during elections is a leadership that is infertile and unwilling to sacrifice the self for the common good.
What we have in Africa are leaders who are broken and all they do is to break others and not build. If vision 2030 and the many developmental programmes that you have started are about building Zimbabwe, Mr President, then let all these be about the people and not you.
We need to see the image of the future of Zimbabwe you have set before us as a leader, while you hold the seed we need to see the fruits.
And for the fruit to be realised, a leader must plant the seed and let it grow. The fruits are the future leaders you will groom and mentor, the seed is your current and last term.
Zimbabwe is ready for leadership that influences through inspiration. Influence through planting the seed and mobilising everyone to look forward to the fruits.
Without you grooming a leadership and allowing it to rise and grow in the coming few years to 2028, then we shall remain with one seed and no fruits.
As I do pray for you daily as a national leader, may Vision 2030 be about leadership mentorship and grooming, about your legacy being taken forward by others. May God bless you and your family.
Your fellow citizen, Rashweat Mukundu
- NB: This is the first weekly column and we would like to invite fellow citizens to contribute and be part of this thought leadership and nation building initiative. You can e-mail your contributions to [email protected]
