Nick’s case of the kettle calling the pot pitch black

INFORMATION secretary Nick Mnagwana was gloating on Twitter this week over the report Chamisa in WhatsApp ban shocker, ( The Herald, December 9, 2020). The report said the MDC-Alliance led by Nelson Chamisa had barred its members from discussing party matters on social media platforms.

In the grossly one-sided article, analysts were quoted denouncing the move communicated to the MDC-A rank and file by party secretary-general Charlton Hwende in a memo.

“Political analysts who spoke to The Herald described the decision by Mr Chamisa to muzzle free expression and debate in the troubled MDC-A as a reflection of the party leader’s aversion to freedom of speech and expression, tenets the party claims to uphold but had since discarded.”

On his part, Mangawana went on Twitter and wrote a list of things he said the MDC-A move violated: “They don’t believe in the freedom of expression; not in the rule of law; not in allowing the winner of elections to govern peacefully. They are just NOT democrats. Simple.”

A few hundred metres from Nick’s office at the police headquarters, PGHQ, had also been busy on Twitter writing: “The ZRP warns individuals and groups from committing crime through cyber bullying of government officials who will be performing their constitutional and lawful obligations in terms of service delivery to Zimbabweans.”

A second tweet said: “The Police is aware that a certain group of suspects who know that their arrest is imminent is fingered and issuing threats and harassing some officials @tmuguti @ nickmangwana.”

The fact that @nickmangwana was tagged in the tweets means a great deal. Reports later said the police were reacting to the bullying of Mangwana himself and others such as Provincial Development Co-ordinator for Harare Metropolitian Tafadzwa Muguti on social media particularly on Twitter.

Mangwana, as far as is known, did not react to the police tweet. That presents problems: What Hwende did with his memo to his party faithful is exactly what the police have done to Zimbabweans who feel they should talk directly through social media to politicians and public officials. Mangwana should have come out defending all those people who have had the guts to speak truth to power through cyberspace. That he did not show he himself does not believe in any of the things that he accused the MDC-A of not believing in. In other words, he and the outfit he speaks for “are just NOT Democrats. Simple”.

Mangwana should be at the forefront of defending freedom of expression; that is what his ministry purports to do through pushing for media reform. That he finds the police threat to arrest people for expressing their feelings not worth denouncing means he is a hypocrite.

Captured police

MEANWHILE, the ZRP should be told point blank they have no business interfering with people’s freedoms by threatening to arrest them for expressing themselves. Politicians and government officials are not super humans and are always open to public scrutiny. It is not the role of the ZRP to police what people say to their leaders.

Most importantly this police action raises eyebrows on the sincerity of government to implement media reforms. Many in the media fraternity and in the legal field familiar with media reform have always expressed their doubt at the government’s sincerity in that regard.

EXILED Professor Jonathan Moyo has been busy burning the midnight candle. This week he ran a long Twitter thread that purportedly exposed with raw evidence the first family, that is, President ED Mnangagwa and his wife Auxillia as the barons and beneficiaries of money laundering and gold smuggling by one Mohamed Zakariya Patel. He said the evidence covered the period from May 24, 2018 to January 14, 2019!

In the 21-frame thread, Moyo concludes: “What emerges is that Mnangagwa’s so-called anti-corruption campaign is fake. Mnangagwa has weaponised corruption, not to fight it, but to criminalise his opponents and has used that criminalisation to cover up his and his family's corruption as captured in the ‘Zaks Dossier’!

“The facts and the implications of the WhatsApp chats between Mohamed Zakariya Patel and Ishmaiel Moosa Lunat speak for themselves; exposing serious crimes. The people must hold Mnangagwa and his wife Auxillia to account, without fear or favour. State House is now a looting haven!”

Everyone knows Moyo has a long-standing feud with the First Family; after all he is in exile due to their ascendancy to power. As an interested part therefore his work cannot be taken hook, line and sinker. Should Moyo be believed? The answer is simple: only the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) can go to the bottom of this.

Why Zacc? Because it has a point to prove to the nation and the world at large; and the point is that it is not a captured institution. Recently aspersions have been cast at it regarding the deputy Minister of Health and Child Care, John Mangwiro, who stands accused of influencing NatPharm to give a US$6 million tender to a company he has an interest in. it merged Zacc has not acted as quickly as it did in similar cases particularly the one involving former Health minister Obadiah Moyo who was quickly arrested, brought before the courts and relieved of his duties. It turned out Mangwiro could be getting protection from someone powerful, believed to be none other than one of the VPs.

Zacc now has a lot on its plate: can it let such serious allegations against the head of state just go uninvestigated? What would Zimbabweans, let alone the world, think about the corruption investigation body’s usefulness?

But Jonso compromises himself by being too personal. He spews his bitterness almost on a daily basis accusing the ruling party and its leaders of crimes he himself was a part to or which he was involved in by omission and commission.

Gukurahundi is one of his favourite themes in his endless struggle to pull down Mnangagwa. In this struggle he seems to want to absolve Robert Mugabe, who was Prime Minister and commanderin-chief of the armed forces. The 5 Brigade, which supposedly undertook the atrocities, reported to him personally but Jonso wants the world to believe otherwise and point the finger solely at Mnangagwa.

IN another tweet this week, he said a new documentary The Gukurahundi Effect: A Documentary on the Impact of the Gukurahundi Massacres in Zimbabwe Today, would be released soon. The documentary would “mark 33 years of the failed ‘Unity Accord’ between Zanu and Zapu signed on 22 December 1987”. He describes it as a “critically engaging documentary on how Zimbabwe has become a full blown Gukurahundi State”.

The teaser is accompanied by a poster of five people led by Mnangagwa; the other people in it are four generals who include Constantino Chiwenga, Valerio Sibanda and the late Perrance Shiri.

Criticism was quick. One Lashias Ncube wrote: “A poster of Gukurahundi architects sans Mugabe, the chief architect, stretches credibility. Nay, it’s revisionist and seeks to absolve Mugabe. It’s rubbish.”

Tendai Matengambishi concurred: “Thank you Lashias, I think @ProfJNMoyo personally owes Mugabe not in monetary terms, but in ways he can’t go public about, that’s blinded his judgment, sad for a man who lost his own dad to Mugabe deployed soldiers.”