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Lazarus Junior Correspondent
Let us open the Holy Book, in Acts Chapter 20 vs 7-12.
We have no time, ye followers, so let me go straight to the point.
The verse records a dramatic incident, in which a youthful man, Eutychus feel asleep and fell from third story to the ground, while Apostle Paul was preaching.
The detail matters dear reader, Eutychus “sat on a window” in search for aeration. It wasn’t enough however to avert his sleep.
Upon Eutychus’ fall, the bible tells us of how Apostle Paul, threw himself to the young man, embraced him and exhorted fellow believers after learning that Eutychus was still alive. The beautiful story ends with Apostle Paul and Eutychus in communion.
Go well General Chimonyo
The story of Eutychus resembles some antics which Professor Jonathan Moyo has shown of late.
Hardly 24 hours, after the interment of one of Lieutenant General Edzai Chanyuka Chimonyo (May His Dear Soul Rest in Peace), the Prof was already telling us about who was to succeed the late Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) Commander.
As a citizen of Zimbabwe, regardless of his current abode in Nairobi, the Prof was initially within reasonable grounds to start a crucial debate about the next ZNA Commander, given the currency which the position holds in the military and the levers of state governance.
Yet, like Eutychus Professor Moyo, made an epic fall after he bizarrely threw in the name of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage Permanent Secretary, Aaron Daniel Tonde Nhepera as a frontrunner to replace Lt-Gen Chimonyo! Before calling it quits, Moyo then conjured another Gukurahundi conspiracy theory in which he preposterously dropped Cde Nhepera’s name.
For once Prof Moyo, discarded all convention, for a thoughtless tweet which appeared to have been written by a ragtag. Riding on his blue-ticked handle Twitter handle @ProfJNMoyo, which some have mistaken for an official source of verified information, Moyo’s tweet, found few takers, retweets and likes.
It was cantankerous that even an online- based media agency- which simply aggregates information written elsewhere and tweets, took Professor Moyo’s utterances, hook line and sinker, in acts which annihilated the profession of journalism, which has been reduced to re-porting (that is simply carrying information) from one point to another, without asking the hard, if not elementary questions for allegations of that nature.
The Prof should draw counsel from Acts 8:26-40, which tells us about Phillip’s encounter with an Ethiopian Eunuch who could not comprehend the text which he read from the book of Isiah! Upon being asked, by Phillip if he understood the text, he responded “how can I unless someone guides me!”
Now, did the professor understand what he was tweeting?
Did he read the critical question about the Commander of the ZNA, within the broader national question?
Did he seek for revelation, at a time it was needed the most?
No, he did not. Rather he tweeted from his vantage tweeting point, to a point were netizens questioned his opinions.
@GoldAyanda, responded to the tweet saying thus; “Don’t look for relevance by just peddling wrong information, you must write what you know about”. Palaver, finish! Can I get an Amen!
From his apartment in Nairobi, Moyo confuses his tweets for lofty ideas. He seeks to set an agenda about who succeeds Lt-Gen Chimonyo, in a narrative which has shown his emptiness!
And what does he do, he finds a quiet and composed Cde Nhepera, who happens to be a decorated freedom fighter, as the next ZNA commander.
Those who know Cde Nhepera, can attest to the man’s credentials, which he doesn’t beat his chest about. Prof Moyo knows this fully too well, which is why he always founds it convenient to bring Cde Nhepera’s name whenever he sees fit.
In his vain attempt of bringing Cde Nhepera’s name into matters so distant to him, Jonso rekindles his undying envy of a wartime generation which entered the trenches fighting against white minority rule at a time the Prof deserted the struggle.
It is either his lack of participation during the epochal period of the country’s pre-independent history denied Moyo with an opportunity to understand the composition of the country’s military establishment and leadership determination, which comes from a structured hierarchical military line!
It however, appears that Jonso appears to have a vendetta with Cde Nhepera. It all started after his inglorious attacks chiding Cde Nhepera’s reassignment as Home Affairs Permanent Secretary in November 2019.
Typical of persons of Moyo’s ilk, Moyo deliberately chose to downgrade the appointment, which is a powerful position in the state matrix of governance. In his attack in 2019, Moyo deliberately attacked an office bearer by the position he holds within the state. He also venerated himself, as the only individual who matters in the scheme of things, as a Twitterer, scripting sentences from his small apartment in Nairobi!
In early 2020, an unrelenting Moyo devised another trick to smear Cde Nhepera, after suggesting that the Permanent Secretary who was barely a month old in office, was behind a “fake ISBN number” for his book. The facts of the matter were however set straight and the Prof simply retreated to his corner, without owning up!
It is purely ahistorical if not anachronistic for Moyo, to suddenly want to suddenly recognise Cde Nhepera’s credentials and person which he demeans, by nefariously foisting him for the commandership of the ZNA (an impossibility in any case), at a time the Secretary is devoting his energies towards fulfilling his incumbent duties.
Moyo’s latest rants, portray a man bearing a deep sense of amnesia, who learnt nothing from the Youth Interface rallies, where he had been venerated as a thinktank.
It is ominous that the same Prof was cautioned by Manheru who implored him to “leave those scurrilous and thoughtless 140-letter tweets, all to motivate and orchestrate real research, to build and organise real knowledge, without doubt always your forte, your competence!
In his 2017 article titled “Zimbabwe: Importance of Self-Belief, even Arrogance” Manheru further lectured the prof;
“Chine vene vacho chinhu ichi and you won’t be there when great questions of the day are settled mumatare avo! Too young, too small, simply a late arrivant, my good soul-mate! You, me, all others like us, must do what we know and do best: quietly remake our worlds by remarking the knowledge that animates and moves them.”
Has Professor Moyo mustered the wise counsel?
Has his exile experience given him a time to meditate about the matters of the state?
Has he comprehended the hierarchy of the ZNA and the Defence Forces as a whole?
Has he suddenly become ignorant to governance and the way of appointments within the state where he saved as an Information and later on Higher Education Minister?
From his appointment in Nairobi, Moyo now seeks to invent Zimbabwe’s appointments by throwing a name or two into a matter, which only the President has the prerogative to address, in response to the capabilities of the top men and women at the helm of the ZNA!
Maybe he can tell us about who will succeed Warriors Coach Zdravko Logarušić, after the boys poor-run at the Cosafa tournament. Kikikik.
From his Twitter window, which he sits, like Eutychus-who went in deep slumber, Prof Moyo discards the credible vast sources of information on the digital space!
For now, he has willy-nilly ignored the things that matter for a banal anti-intellectual discourse, whose pivot, at least for now is to determine the next ZNA commander by tweeting!
Who will hold the Prof at his moment?
Where is the Paul to save Moyo him from his epic falls and hallucinations?
Online Reporter