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Tafadzwa Mugwadi Zanu PF Director for Information and Publicity
On Monday, Zimbabwe celebrates 42 years of Independence, freedom and the right to self-determination as a people together.
Independence that came following a protracted liberation struggle where brave men and women, girls and boys paid the ultimate price in gallant sacrifices that brought down the colonial Union Jack flag.
This marked the end of 100 years of British tyranny, colonial plunder, expropriation, enslavement, racial segregation, oppression, suppression and repression of the black majority, brutalisation and extra-judicial killing of black nationalists and imprisonment.
Today, we proudly walk tall as a people, as we, on this day pay homage and honour to those who gave their all to make us free, our founding fathers and mothers. Thousands of them perished and continue to lie in unmarked graves, while some were swallowed by the waters and mountains without trace as they toiled, soiled and wailed to ensure that Zimbabwe is born.
The living, the departed, the unaccounted for, all paid the ultimate price, paid with their blood and sweat so that a Nation is born.
Today we all pride in being a people, an empowered nation, a united lot, not because someone else did this for us, but ourselves. No wonder why, the mantra, Nyika Yakauya Nevene Vayo, Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo, Ilizwe Lakhiwa Ngabaikazi Balo.
As we turn 42, I have taken the responsibility to unpack this special revolutionary message of modern-day Pan Africanism namely – Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo – Ilizwe Lakhiwa Ngabanikazi Balo. What was the thinking behind this prophetic rallying war cry mantra from President Mnangagwa, the leading African Statesman and loyal founding father of our time?
Is it an ordinary dream, or a living reality? Are we capable of building our nation with our own hands, our own minds, our own capacity, our God-Given natural resources, our own people in unity, peace and harmony or we need as said by the opposition groups, white people to come back to do it for us?
Do we believe we can do it, or someone else must do it while we watch or be rendered useless in our own country? In short, who should take our country forward? Those who want the whites to board airplanes to come and do it for us in their own exploitative, brutal and selfish colonial or neo-colonial way which our forefathers and fore-mothers fought against and paid the ultimate sacrifice against, or ourselves?
The answer is very clear, Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo, brick-upon-brick, stone-upon-stone, ibwe pamusoro perimwe ibwe . . . and in doing so, no one and no place must be left behind.
Having said so, the million-dollar question is how? Ahead of the celebrations @42 in Bulawayo, as the Party’s Director for Information and Publicity, the revolutionary party of our founding fathers and mothers, the party of our luminaries Cde RG Mugabe, Cde Joshua Nkomo, Cde Simon Muzenda, Cde ED Mnangagwa, Cde John Landa Nkomo, Cde Msika, Cde Jason Moyo, Cde Josiah Magama Tongogara, Cde Nikita Mangena, Cde Herbert Chitepo, Cde Edgar Tekere, Cde George Silundika, Cde Rex Nhongo and indeed, the Party that Mbuya Nehanda postulated as the bearer of her undying bones that would liberate the nation, it is my honour to demystify the mantra Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo as a formula towards a middle income society by 2030.
There is no doubt that Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo mantra has become the guiding philosophy of the Second Republic under the visionary leadership of our Liberator Cde ED Mnangagwa.
Picking from the foundation laid in the First Republic, Zimbabweans should recall that independence itself was achieved by the owners of this republic – Vene Vayo. There is no challenge that has confronted us as a people since independence which we have failed to prevail upon.
The white settlers who continued to enjoy the fruits of land despite having lost the war at the expense of our patient people required that revolutionary giant steps be taken to address the colonial racial imbalances over the ownership of land as a means of production.
For us as Zimbabweans, land belongs to three categories of people, the living, the dead and the unborn. The living because we survive and drive our agro-based economy from the land, the dead because their remains are interred in the land and the unborn because the land is their legacy.
It was imperative that we be united with our legacy, the land. The ZANU PF Government spearheaded the land reform programme, where land was redistributed compulsorily to the black majority from less than 3 000 white farmers who owned over 80 percent of the land in farms against the black majority Zimbabweans who had endured 20 years of being squeezed in less than 10percent of the land as a legacy of colonial racial dispossession.
Do you know that up to now, no other African nation or Africans own their land in totality compared to Zimbabweans? Ivhu Rakatorwa Nevene Varo Kuti Nyika Ivakwe Nevene Vayo.
We are the only revolutionary party and people in Africa who crossed that red-line set by colonialists, in the process earning us derogatory titles such as “an axis of evil”.
We were rewarded by punitive sanctions from the west, led by Britain, the USA and the European Union. The sanctions were meant to make our economy scream, separate Zimbabweans from their revolutionary party and leadership and break the symbiotic bond sanctified in blood of liberation and ultimately revolt against ZANU PF so that their newly formed puppet movements become their trojan horses to repossess land, enslave our people and disempower them.
Kutorera Vene Venyika Ivhu Kuti Vasavaka Nyika Yavo Sevene Vayo. The mighty revolutionary people of Zimbabwe resisted resiliently for 22 years and continue to renounce sanctions, stood with their leadership and party despite being under so much economic distress, hunger, and vilification by sponsored media narratives.
Like the majestic Zambezi river that flows from the north to the oceans, we remained steadfast, flowing and braving the tides. Our conscience was and remains clear, Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo.
The hyperinflationary period came, and our currency became useless, the bearer cheques reached quintillions, hexillions, and became useless following systematic attacks from the sanctioning nations under US’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), where all transactions, assets and remittances destined for Zimbabwe were chocked and frozen to make our people scream. We screamed in resistance, hunting for solutions to our situation. Companies and investors closed, those who wanted to invest in Zimbabwe were sanctioned, punished and threatened in broad day light by successive regimes from George Bush and Tony Blair but our people refused to bent to the colonial whims of the west. Our people and leadership were called all sorts of names, branded dictators by known brutal dictators who were killing millions in Iraq, Vietnam and lately Lybia and Syria, but refused to budge. Threats of bombardment, invasion disguised as the Responsibility To Protect were hatched and threatened but our people buoyed by the solidarity from China and Russia, our all-weather friends and the African Union and SADC remained ready to defend their borders and face the beast in the eye. Indeed, the world saw a rare breed of Zimbabweans, a smiling people in friendly situations but determined fighters when duty calls.
Today, 42 years down the line, despite living under sanctions where our currency is the prime target, we have managed under the Second Republic, to bring back our currency the Zimbabwean dollar, after 10 years of using a foreign currency regime headlined by the US dollar. Although systematic and spirited attacks on our currency remain in place, our currency has endured in the market under the Second Republic of President ED Mnangagwa and indeed, there is not going back to the hyper-inflationary era. This owes to sound people centered and business and investment friendly policies of the Second Republic where productivity is at the center of every effort. This is aimed at growing our economy towards vision 2030 leveraging on our own resources and capacities as a people, in the process building the Nation through Our Own Hands – Kuvaka Nyika Sevene Vayo.
We faced the challenges of food insecurity due to denial from access to agricultural inputs following the land reform program, exacerbated by a then weak currency. We had become accustomed to importing food, grain including royco from surrounding nations, becoming a consumer republic in every facet of life. Under Second Republic with our visionary leader President ED Mnangagwa, we have turned the page, becoming a net exporter of grain and food following the introduction and adoption of the scientific Pfumvudza/ Intwasa Farming Programme which ushered in a 2020-2021 bumper harvest season that broke records. This is indeed because of our empowered black farmers, the new sheriffs in the farms. It is not political rhetoric when President ED Mnangagwa, a famer in his own right declares that No Zimbabwean will die of hunger under his administration. Our National Storages Reserves are pregnant with sufficient grain despite poor rains this year to feed our people. Yes, the rains were not good and our agricultural production declined in the just ended farming season but we have the means to ensure that our people emerge out of this year’s drought season stronger. Takazvirimira Toga Sevene Venyika Nekuti Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo
To ensure that we put a smile on our farming people, both small and large scale, The Second Republic has erected, commissioned and on the verge of completing the construction of several dams, themselves water reservoirs to ensure that going forward, our people shall not rely on natural patterns of climate or weather to determine their farming choices.
Irrigation facilities have been put in place around communities near those dams to boost agriculture. We are doing those dams using our own resources both human and financial as a people because Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo.
As we celebrate our independence, 42 years of it, all Zimbabweans will attest to the undeniable fact that the last time they saw yellow metal working on our roads under the previous dispensation was a long ago.
The Vision of the second Republic is to ensure that Zimbabwe emerges from being landlocked to being land linked and that can only be possible if our roads speak to other roads in the region, smoothening efficient movement of goods for both domestic and export trade. These roads are being built with our own resources, both human and financial. Tikasazviita Isu, Zvinoitwa Nani? Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo.
Our President Cde Mnangagwa has put a permanent indelible signature on our arterial roads and now the focus turns into urban areas where roads tell a sad story of total neglect at the hands of opposition city fathers who believe that Nyika inovakwa nevauyi.
While some would have said, the MDC-CCC factions must take responsibility of their messy in towns and cities, President ED Mnangagwa says no, under the mantra No One and No place must be left behind.
In 2020, the world was engulfed by sombre atmosphere following the outbreak of the COVID-19 disaster which left millions dead and remains with us today. In 2020, the pandemic announced its arrival in Zimbabwe, claiming the life of the first victim, my friend, Zororo Makamba in March 2020. Despite losing over 5000 of our people to death from this deadly pandemic, we are today ranked by the world as one of the few countries that managed to contain the spread of the pandemic and saved the lives of our people. Nations were receiving financial assistance from WHO and the IMF and World Bank as well as other multilateral financial institutions to fight the pandemic, but Zimbabwe was denied using the stigma of sanctions. The local opposition using fake journalists sponsored negative publicity through Hopewell Chin’ono that sought to isolate Zimbabwe from benefiting from such emergently needed Covid-19 assistance. Our President, Cde ED Mnangagwa was called all sorts of names by the west and their puppets, presented as a leader who had no formula to tackle the pandemic but where are we now? The President sought for alternative solutions, support and solidarity to save our people. WE shall never forget that those who continue to maintain sanctions on us today, postulated in their narrative that we were going to be littered by dead bodies of Covid-19 victims in the streets but instead, the exact happened in their backyard. They sponsored fake news journalists, to make frivolous claims that our government was hiding victims of Covid-19 yet daily statistics were published.
They sponsored the same known journalists to spread false news that our government was killing people in the enforcement tight level 5 lockdowns and curfews like what other countries were doing. For the record, no person was ever killed during enforcement of lockdowns in Zimbabwe but they sought to soil our name. But lies as President ED Mnangagwa often say have short legs. Today, we are the leading nation in Africa in terms of Covid-19 vaccinations, owing to the solidarity of China, Russia and India as well as procurement of vaccines by our government. We have assisted sister republics like Namibia and Botswana with more vaccines because we have managed to vaccinate our people. We have done that united as a people, following the wisdom of our leaders. Our detractors never gave us a chance but we prevailed, using our own hands and capacities, supported by friendly nations. We saved our people Nekuti Tisu Vene Vayo. Nyika Inovakwa, Inochengetedzwa Huye Nekutungamirirwa Nevene Vayo. We are all alive today because our leadership prioritized saving our lives. When we were procuring vaccines, from china, they paid the same renegade fake news journalists to make false claims that those vaccines were in effective and not recommended and therefore that people should refuse to be vaccinated. The opposition elements led by the white front-boy Nelson Chamisa and their rank and file also joined the fake news crusade calling for our people to refuse to be vaccinated. Later own, they were on the line to be vaccinated themselves without a shame. They stand vaccinated today, without even a word of appreciation. What a wretched of Africa!!
Cyclone Idai hit Zimbabwe’s eastern highlands, killing over 2000 people and leaving a legacy of destruction never seen from a natural disaster in Zimbabwe before. Our people were left homeless, infrastructure was buried together with people’s sources of livelihood destroyed. It was indeed a sad moment. No one had ever anticipated it. But our disaster preparedness and air rescue missions led by the President himself demonstrated to the world that indeed, Zimbabwe is ready to confront its challenges head on. Today, Chimanimani and neighbouring communities affected are back to life, infrastructure back to normal, and the survivors have smiles on their faces again. We have done that on our own, with solidarity from friendly nations like China, Russia, S. Africa, Tanzania, India, United Arab Emirates among others. Our people were not saved nevauyi but by our own leaders.
Yes, we have celebrated independence before, 41 years ago, yes we have celebrated it in style before and every such celebration was awesome. But this year, the President, our Statesman, our Torchbearer, our Visionary, our Father, the Man of the Moment His Excellency Cde ED Mnangagwa, has finally celebrated with us in style, showing us the formula- that Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo, not by outsiders, not by foreigners, not by puppets, not by trojan horses of neocolonial elements, not even by ex-rhodesians, not through fake news but ourselves, united in our diversity, in unity, in oneness- that oneness that we are a people together. Where we differ, let us, at all times value dialogue, for through dialogue, no challenge, no problem, no hurdle is beyond our capacity to resolve. Nyika Ndiwe Neni, Isu Tose, Nyika Inovakwa Nevene Vayo, brick upon brick, stone upon stone through productivity, productivity and nothing else but productivity. With unity, oneness and productivity, we have rendered sanctions useless, creating jobs, setting the foundation for the future of housing, harnessing our capacities together to modernize our health system, and above all, providing solutions to the public transport system through revival of ZUPCO. Our God given minerals today, as we celebrate 42 years of Uhuru are changing the lives of our people throughout the country, the youth, the elderly, women and everyone. Our manufacturing sector has emerged from the dungeon and is now on the surface, ready to take giant steps forward, for under the Second Republic, the majestic touch of His Excellency President Mnangagwa has breathed life unto them.
Under the second Republic, Independence has gathered its meaning to all. Let us shun politics of hate, violence, stones throwing, needless provocations, for nothing, no profit comes from them but despair. Let us all embrace the spirit of hard work as exemplified by our Leadership, for only through that way can we build a prosperous nation. Nyika Iyi, Nyika Iyi, Iyoyi Iyi, from Zambezi to Limpopo, Inovakwa Nevene Vayo.
Makorokoto, Congratulations, Amhlope to our war veterans, our founding fathers, our war collaborators, the people of Zimbabwe and our youth and women in general for turning 42 on this day of our Lord. May we be all reminded that Zimbabwe shall never be a colony again. We shall celebrate this independence for the next millions of billions of trillions of years to come. We fought our struggle once, we won it, we gave birth to a republic, today its now an adult, ready to take any challenge. The revolutionary task at hand is to win every community, bring back every community to ZANU PF for development
Happy 42 Zimbabwe. Till the next birthday, we wish you many more.
Online Reporter