Thembani Mthembo Dube
www.zimdiaspora.com
Professor Jonathan Moyo and former Defence Minister Enos Nkala are arguably the worst notorious Ndebele leaders since the formation of the Ndebele nation in 1821 under King Mzilikazi.
A close historical analysis reveal that a section of the Zulus under King Mzilikazi who sought a different identity upon leaving Tshaka’s Zululand by renaming themselves as AmaNdebele have never had such clumsy leaders as Prof Moyo and Nkala. Perhaps every bucket of apples has bad ones.
When Ndebeles crossed Limpopo River into southern Zimbabwe in 1821 they had extremely good, able and trustworth leaders such as Mcumbatha, Magwegwe, Lotshe and so on while Shonas crossed from the North into the same area as early as 1300.
We have also had extremely reliable and brave Ndebele leaders such as Joshua Nkomo, Sydney Malunga, Lockout Masuku, Jaison Z Moyo, the list is too long.
Prof Jonathan Moyo
In my previous article entitled Matebeleland: Framing a crisis within a crisis, I strongly indicated that the embodiment of the internal flames of crisis within Matebeleland is that of leadership crisis.
Former Defence minister Enos Nkala
There is some unpopular willingness by these poodles to dabble in the politics of appeasing the ruling political system in Zimbabwe by those engaged in politics as representatives of the people and by those who are leaders in shaping the opinions and ideas about the vision of this region.
Some have continued to seek personal glory and therefore invariably becoming personal glory seekers at the expense of those they claim to represent. The introspection on the Matebeleland’s flames of crisis therefore continues unabated.
I have decided to zero down to two prominent Ndebele leaders that have either graced or disgraced (take your pick) the Zimbabwean body politic since Zimbabwe became independent from Southern Rhodesia in 1980.
The argument advanced here is that Professor Jonathan Moyo and Enos Nkala are arguably the worst notorious Ndebele leaders we have ever had in our ranks since the crafty statesmanship of the creation and establishment of the Ndebele nation by the great elephant King Mzilikazi KaMashobana.
The fact is that they are the most dishonourable and scandalous Ndebele leaders the Zanu PF system has ever produced since the glorious attempted preservation of the Ndebele nation by King Lobengula, who fought great battles against the marauding and blood-letting colonialists in the then African Ndebele Kingdom.
The first ever black rebellion battle in the soil of that Kingdom was Impi yoMvukela organized and executed by the great King and his warrior impis in 1893. The illustrious battles of Tshangane and Gadade were to follow later, where the colonialists under the leadership of Cecil John Rhodes, were given a good hiding by the assegai and shield wielding warrior Ndebele impis.
The values of ubuntu and the true and genuine leadership of this nation were tested during those wars and our great founding fathers showed leadership excellence in the midst of gun touting and trigger happy colonialists.
Bad Leadership
It is in this context that Prof Moyo and Nkala are viewed as the most notorious Ndebele leaders the peoples of Matebeleland and Midlands areas have ever had. They are good case studies of bad leadership that has been driven by personal glory seeking behaviour that has been executed at the expense of those they purport to represent.
Their standing within this region is indeed ugly beyond any conceivable repair. They are our political twins from hell whose political notoriety in defence of Zanu PF would be recorded in the history books of Zimbabwe and the world as having been outstandingly nauseating since the birth of black independence in 1980.
It is remarkably clear that Prof Moyo and Nkala are perched at the top of the heap of poor political leadership that has emerged from this region produced by the engendered and rooted Zanu PF political system. The existence of this kind of poor leadership in the region is not by accident but by Zanu PF’s design and political machinations against the region since pre and post 1980 period. Prof Moyo and Nkala have merely been the tools and agents of this deadly system.
The claims made by Prof Moyo that his father was murdered in cold blood by the 5th Brigade during its supreme reign of terror in Matabeleland and Midlands areas are most likely true. This personal loss of his father at the hands of Zanu PF and its murderous apparatus makes his defence of Zanu PF an even more nauseating political exercise on his part.
It renders the Professor a morally bankrupt individual whose conscience and aorta of morality is now sadly dead and buried in the criminal and murderous belly of Zanu PF.
The public and those who still have the values of ubuntu are left with this fundamental and troubling question for the Professor: Does his political actions of defending and of being the vanguard of a system that crushed and obliterated his own father not amount to selling his own father’s memory for a few pieces of silver?
It is indeed shocking and troubling to observe that the Professor is much closer to Zanu PF than to his moral conscience and values of ubuntu.
Perhaps the his worst decision was to rejoin ZANU-PF when his electorate loved him so much and wanted him out of their perpetrators’ garden. Tsholotsho, which Prof Moyo is representing in Parliament is one of the Gukurahundi hardest-hit areas.
The Professor’s dramatic, trouble-rousing and often vitriolic propaganda crusade against the real and imaginary enemies of Zanu PF since joining Zanu PF in 1999 and later becoming the appointed Minister of propaganda (information) is well documented and well known.
Ever since that time, Prof Moyo became the illustrious, energetic and the visible face of Zanu PF’s tyranny against those perceived to be the enemies of this party. This was up until when he was expelled form Zanu PF after the embarrassing Diyane debacle in Tsholotsho where the Zanu PF internal power struggles exploded to the public arena. It is only then that the Zimbabweans got a respite from his haranguing propaganda.
After this interesting and dramatic expulsion from Zanu PF, Prof Moyo would later famously declare that, ‘He who appoints disappoints’, temporarily breaking taboo of publicly criticising Mugabe. Many thought that this was the Paul of Damascus political moment and political aha phenomenon for the Professor. He let loose his propaganda against Zanu PF describing it as a ‘sinking ship’ that he had saved from total disaster. He promised the world that he would write his memoirs of his experience in Zanu PF and threatened to spill the beans against Zanu PF. The world is still waiting for these memoirs.
We were to be proven wrong by the dramatic actions of the Professor who later rejoined Zanu PF claiming he had never forsaken his beloved party. He has since continued his propaganda from where he left after his expulsion from Zanu PF with relentless passion, political trumpeting and indeed political fanfare.
What is hated by those of his kith and kin is not so much the propaganda he churns day in and day out against Zanu PF’s perceived western enemies but his overzealous defence of a system that prides itself with cultural and social oppression, tribal and political hegemony, intellectual and educational strangulation of the entire peoples’ of Matabeleland and Midland areas. The defence of these injustices by strengthening Zanu PF’s political existence is indeed treacherous and ugly.
Genocide and Leadership
In 1980 the infamous Enos Nkala, like Jonathan Moyo, became the propaganda face of Zanu PF against PF Zapu and the populace of Matabeleland and Midland areas. The rouble rousing Enos Nkala laid the foundation for the first ever genocide to be committed in southern Africa. Nkala’s provocative political ranting against PF Zapu and The Zimbabwe Peoples’ Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) led to the dangerous clashes that took place between ZNLA and ZIPRA forces at Entumbane.
His actions and that of his gang laid the foundation for the future mass raping, mass beating and mass carnage of his own people. He became a tool and agent of a long planned strategy to uproot Joshua Nkomo’s perceived political powerbase through violence and mass murder of his perceived supporters.
To this day, the Gukurahundi genocide remains an albatross around Nkala’s neck, his legacy and that of his Zanu PF comrades. It should be noted that during this mayhem and ‘madness’ of Gukurahundi years, Nkala was the visible face of Zanu PF’s genocidal forays in Matabeleland and Midland areas while Prof Moyo became the visible face of Zanu PF’s Hondo Yeminda murderous adventures in every corner of Zimbabwe. This is Moyo’s and Zanu PF’s legacy in recent years.
One statement of fact about Nkala is that during this height of Zanu PF’s ‘madness’ years in the 80’s, he held various key ministerial portfolios in Mugabe’s government. These were the ministry of Defence and Home Affairs respectively.
On the 26th of February 1998, Nkala unashamedly denied his involvement and responsibility in Gukurahundi in a public meeting organised by Imbovane YaMahlabezulu, a political pressure group from Matabeleland. He sought to exonerate himself from this ‘madness’ and heaped all blame on Robert Mugabe, Sydney Sekeramai and Emmerson Mnangagwa.
One hopes that in the not so distant future, Nkala’s extent of involvement and responsibility in this despicable crime against humanity shall be uncovered. In the same vein, one hopes that the extent of Professor Moyo’s involvement and responsibility in exporting violence to all the corners of Zimbabwe during the Hondo Yeminda disturbances shall be fully uncovered.
There is no doubt that Nkala and Moyo have been at the forefront of the bastardization and soiling of the good principles and goals of the revolutionary struggle pioneered, led and internationalized by Joshua Nkomo. They have played a dastardly and roguish role in this game leading to mass human rights violations in Zimbabwe particularly in Matabeleland and Midland areas. They have been the political mahobhoz of Zanu PF and its system.
Mao once remarked and asserted that, ‘All correct leadership is necessarily from the masses to the masses’. This is truly not the case with Enos Nkala and Professor Moyo. They have never been from the masses to the masses in our region. They have always been imposed by Zanu PF through political trickery.
Prof Moyo’s ascendency to the Information ministry in Mugabe’s government and the subsequent pumping of Zanu PF resources into Tsholotsho to buy the long deliberately underdeveloped constituency into voting Moyo is a case in point.
That cosmetic and short-lived development ended with Moyo’s expulsion from the party. It might have resumed recently since Moyo’s return to the party. That kind of ‘development’, if we may call it development, is unsustainable and not needed at all. Matabeleland and the people of Matabeleland deserve better.
Hebert Spencer commenting on the scourge of hero-worshiping stated that hero-worshiping, ‘…is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom’. Zimbabwe is one of those textbook examples where there is little regard for human freedom. Enos Nkala and Professor Moyo are the products of a system that has least respect for human freedoms.
Beyond Zanu PF’s Nkala and Moyo
MDC-T has not proved any different from Zanu PF. In reality MDC-T has perfected a Zanu PF system of producing political mahobhoz from our region.
The Ndebele leadership element in MDC-T movement has suffered or is suffering the mahobho syndrome of the likes of Jonathan Moyo and Nkala. They are equally suffering the same fate that the enfeebled old PF Zapu leadership suffered under Zanu PF after the unity accord. John Landa Nkomo as the Vice President of Zimbabwe is as enfeebled as Thokozani Khuphe the MDC-T Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
This however should not surprise us. For the record, it is well known that MDC-T is composed of mainly Zanu PF rebels who sought to ambush donor funds by shouting, ‘Democracy! Democracy! Democracy!’ to keep the donor funds flowing like River Nile to their accounts. They have become the fat cats of Zimbabwe. Morgan and his gang have little time for democracy. They can not even observe it within their movement and yet they expect Mugabe and Zanu PF to observe democracy in Zimbabwe.
Conclusion
The solution is located in having dedicated leadership coming from the people for the people and not from Zanu PF for Zanu PF. It should not be a badge of honour to work for and defend the monster that is Zanu PF.
The jury is still out on the leadership of the revived PF Zapu post their association with Zanu PF. They have a challenge to demonstrate that they no longer have the political mahobho syndrome obtained from Zanu PF. It has to be a case of the correct leadership that comes from the masses to the masses and not from Zanu PF.
We should run roughshod over this mahobho syndrome among those who long to lead us. Only through such intervention will Matabeleland be able to rescue itself from self destruction tendencies and rediscover its glory as a region of excellence and merit.
Zimbabwe News as it happens, voice of the voiceless, highlighting social and political injustice in our societies without fear of reprisal or prosecution
www.zimdiaspora.com
Professor Jonathan Moyo and former Defence Minister Enos Nkala are arguably the worst notorious Ndebele leaders since the formation of the Ndebele nation in 1821 under King Mzilikazi.
A close historical analysis reveal that a section of the Zulus under King Mzilikazi who sought a different identity upon leaving Tshaka’s Zululand by renaming themselves as AmaNdebele have never had such clumsy leaders as Prof Moyo and Nkala. Perhaps every bucket of apples has bad ones.
When Ndebeles crossed Limpopo River into southern Zimbabwe in 1821 they had extremely good, able and trustworth leaders such as Mcumbatha, Magwegwe, Lotshe and so on while Shonas crossed from the North into the same area as early as 1300.
We have also had extremely reliable and brave Ndebele leaders such as Joshua Nkomo, Sydney Malunga, Lockout Masuku, Jaison Z Moyo, the list is too long.
Prof Jonathan Moyo
In my previous article entitled Matebeleland: Framing a crisis within a crisis, I strongly indicated that the embodiment of the internal flames of crisis within Matebeleland is that of leadership crisis.
Former Defence minister Enos Nkala
There is some unpopular willingness by these poodles to dabble in the politics of appeasing the ruling political system in Zimbabwe by those engaged in politics as representatives of the people and by those who are leaders in shaping the opinions and ideas about the vision of this region.
Some have continued to seek personal glory and therefore invariably becoming personal glory seekers at the expense of those they claim to represent. The introspection on the Matebeleland’s flames of crisis therefore continues unabated.
I have decided to zero down to two prominent Ndebele leaders that have either graced or disgraced (take your pick) the Zimbabwean body politic since Zimbabwe became independent from Southern Rhodesia in 1980.
The argument advanced here is that Professor Jonathan Moyo and Enos Nkala are arguably the worst notorious Ndebele leaders we have ever had in our ranks since the crafty statesmanship of the creation and establishment of the Ndebele nation by the great elephant King Mzilikazi KaMashobana.
The fact is that they are the most dishonourable and scandalous Ndebele leaders the Zanu PF system has ever produced since the glorious attempted preservation of the Ndebele nation by King Lobengula, who fought great battles against the marauding and blood-letting colonialists in the then African Ndebele Kingdom.
The first ever black rebellion battle in the soil of that Kingdom was Impi yoMvukela organized and executed by the great King and his warrior impis in 1893. The illustrious battles of Tshangane and Gadade were to follow later, where the colonialists under the leadership of Cecil John Rhodes, were given a good hiding by the assegai and shield wielding warrior Ndebele impis.
The values of ubuntu and the true and genuine leadership of this nation were tested during those wars and our great founding fathers showed leadership excellence in the midst of gun touting and trigger happy colonialists.
Bad Leadership
It is in this context that Prof Moyo and Nkala are viewed as the most notorious Ndebele leaders the peoples of Matebeleland and Midlands areas have ever had. They are good case studies of bad leadership that has been driven by personal glory seeking behaviour that has been executed at the expense of those they purport to represent.
Their standing within this region is indeed ugly beyond any conceivable repair. They are our political twins from hell whose political notoriety in defence of Zanu PF would be recorded in the history books of Zimbabwe and the world as having been outstandingly nauseating since the birth of black independence in 1980.
It is remarkably clear that Prof Moyo and Nkala are perched at the top of the heap of poor political leadership that has emerged from this region produced by the engendered and rooted Zanu PF political system. The existence of this kind of poor leadership in the region is not by accident but by Zanu PF’s design and political machinations against the region since pre and post 1980 period. Prof Moyo and Nkala have merely been the tools and agents of this deadly system.
The claims made by Prof Moyo that his father was murdered in cold blood by the 5th Brigade during its supreme reign of terror in Matabeleland and Midlands areas are most likely true. This personal loss of his father at the hands of Zanu PF and its murderous apparatus makes his defence of Zanu PF an even more nauseating political exercise on his part.
It renders the Professor a morally bankrupt individual whose conscience and aorta of morality is now sadly dead and buried in the criminal and murderous belly of Zanu PF.
The public and those who still have the values of ubuntu are left with this fundamental and troubling question for the Professor: Does his political actions of defending and of being the vanguard of a system that crushed and obliterated his own father not amount to selling his own father’s memory for a few pieces of silver?
It is indeed shocking and troubling to observe that the Professor is much closer to Zanu PF than to his moral conscience and values of ubuntu.
Perhaps the his worst decision was to rejoin ZANU-PF when his electorate loved him so much and wanted him out of their perpetrators’ garden. Tsholotsho, which Prof Moyo is representing in Parliament is one of the Gukurahundi hardest-hit areas.
The Professor’s dramatic, trouble-rousing and often vitriolic propaganda crusade against the real and imaginary enemies of Zanu PF since joining Zanu PF in 1999 and later becoming the appointed Minister of propaganda (information) is well documented and well known.
Ever since that time, Prof Moyo became the illustrious, energetic and the visible face of Zanu PF’s tyranny against those perceived to be the enemies of this party. This was up until when he was expelled form Zanu PF after the embarrassing Diyane debacle in Tsholotsho where the Zanu PF internal power struggles exploded to the public arena. It is only then that the Zimbabweans got a respite from his haranguing propaganda.
After this interesting and dramatic expulsion from Zanu PF, Prof Moyo would later famously declare that, ‘He who appoints disappoints’, temporarily breaking taboo of publicly criticising Mugabe. Many thought that this was the Paul of Damascus political moment and political aha phenomenon for the Professor. He let loose his propaganda against Zanu PF describing it as a ‘sinking ship’ that he had saved from total disaster. He promised the world that he would write his memoirs of his experience in Zanu PF and threatened to spill the beans against Zanu PF. The world is still waiting for these memoirs.
We were to be proven wrong by the dramatic actions of the Professor who later rejoined Zanu PF claiming he had never forsaken his beloved party. He has since continued his propaganda from where he left after his expulsion from Zanu PF with relentless passion, political trumpeting and indeed political fanfare.
What is hated by those of his kith and kin is not so much the propaganda he churns day in and day out against Zanu PF’s perceived western enemies but his overzealous defence of a system that prides itself with cultural and social oppression, tribal and political hegemony, intellectual and educational strangulation of the entire peoples’ of Matabeleland and Midland areas. The defence of these injustices by strengthening Zanu PF’s political existence is indeed treacherous and ugly.
Genocide and Leadership
In 1980 the infamous Enos Nkala, like Jonathan Moyo, became the propaganda face of Zanu PF against PF Zapu and the populace of Matabeleland and Midland areas. The rouble rousing Enos Nkala laid the foundation for the first ever genocide to be committed in southern Africa. Nkala’s provocative political ranting against PF Zapu and The Zimbabwe Peoples’ Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) led to the dangerous clashes that took place between ZNLA and ZIPRA forces at Entumbane.
His actions and that of his gang laid the foundation for the future mass raping, mass beating and mass carnage of his own people. He became a tool and agent of a long planned strategy to uproot Joshua Nkomo’s perceived political powerbase through violence and mass murder of his perceived supporters.
To this day, the Gukurahundi genocide remains an albatross around Nkala’s neck, his legacy and that of his Zanu PF comrades. It should be noted that during this mayhem and ‘madness’ of Gukurahundi years, Nkala was the visible face of Zanu PF’s genocidal forays in Matabeleland and Midland areas while Prof Moyo became the visible face of Zanu PF’s Hondo Yeminda murderous adventures in every corner of Zimbabwe. This is Moyo’s and Zanu PF’s legacy in recent years.
One statement of fact about Nkala is that during this height of Zanu PF’s ‘madness’ years in the 80’s, he held various key ministerial portfolios in Mugabe’s government. These were the ministry of Defence and Home Affairs respectively.
On the 26th of February 1998, Nkala unashamedly denied his involvement and responsibility in Gukurahundi in a public meeting organised by Imbovane YaMahlabezulu, a political pressure group from Matabeleland. He sought to exonerate himself from this ‘madness’ and heaped all blame on Robert Mugabe, Sydney Sekeramai and Emmerson Mnangagwa.
One hopes that in the not so distant future, Nkala’s extent of involvement and responsibility in this despicable crime against humanity shall be uncovered. In the same vein, one hopes that the extent of Professor Moyo’s involvement and responsibility in exporting violence to all the corners of Zimbabwe during the Hondo Yeminda disturbances shall be fully uncovered.
There is no doubt that Nkala and Moyo have been at the forefront of the bastardization and soiling of the good principles and goals of the revolutionary struggle pioneered, led and internationalized by Joshua Nkomo. They have played a dastardly and roguish role in this game leading to mass human rights violations in Zimbabwe particularly in Matabeleland and Midland areas. They have been the political mahobhoz of Zanu PF and its system.
Mao once remarked and asserted that, ‘All correct leadership is necessarily from the masses to the masses’. This is truly not the case with Enos Nkala and Professor Moyo. They have never been from the masses to the masses in our region. They have always been imposed by Zanu PF through political trickery.
Prof Moyo’s ascendency to the Information ministry in Mugabe’s government and the subsequent pumping of Zanu PF resources into Tsholotsho to buy the long deliberately underdeveloped constituency into voting Moyo is a case in point.
That cosmetic and short-lived development ended with Moyo’s expulsion from the party. It might have resumed recently since Moyo’s return to the party. That kind of ‘development’, if we may call it development, is unsustainable and not needed at all. Matabeleland and the people of Matabeleland deserve better.
Hebert Spencer commenting on the scourge of hero-worshiping stated that hero-worshiping, ‘…is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom’. Zimbabwe is one of those textbook examples where there is little regard for human freedom. Enos Nkala and Professor Moyo are the products of a system that has least respect for human freedoms.
Beyond Zanu PF’s Nkala and Moyo
MDC-T has not proved any different from Zanu PF. In reality MDC-T has perfected a Zanu PF system of producing political mahobhoz from our region.
The Ndebele leadership element in MDC-T movement has suffered or is suffering the mahobho syndrome of the likes of Jonathan Moyo and Nkala. They are equally suffering the same fate that the enfeebled old PF Zapu leadership suffered under Zanu PF after the unity accord. John Landa Nkomo as the Vice President of Zimbabwe is as enfeebled as Thokozani Khuphe the MDC-T Deputy Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
This however should not surprise us. For the record, it is well known that MDC-T is composed of mainly Zanu PF rebels who sought to ambush donor funds by shouting, ‘Democracy! Democracy! Democracy!’ to keep the donor funds flowing like River Nile to their accounts. They have become the fat cats of Zimbabwe. Morgan and his gang have little time for democracy. They can not even observe it within their movement and yet they expect Mugabe and Zanu PF to observe democracy in Zimbabwe.
Conclusion
The solution is located in having dedicated leadership coming from the people for the people and not from Zanu PF for Zanu PF. It should not be a badge of honour to work for and defend the monster that is Zanu PF.
The jury is still out on the leadership of the revived PF Zapu post their association with Zanu PF. They have a challenge to demonstrate that they no longer have the political mahobho syndrome obtained from Zanu PF. It has to be a case of the correct leadership that comes from the masses to the masses and not from Zanu PF.
We should run roughshod over this mahobho syndrome among those who long to lead us. Only through such intervention will Matabeleland be able to rescue itself from self destruction tendencies and rediscover its glory as a region of excellence and merit.
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