It was a heartening sojourn into the city of Kings and
Queens at the weekend as the ambience and camaraderie amply testified to a city
ready to step into a new country.
The crowd was huge, the atmosphere at the White City
Stadium was electric and scintillating, arguably our biggest crowd so far while
the trip to the Dr Joshua Nkomo Museum enabled me the opportunity to shake
hands with a glorious and revolutionary past.
I felt tears welling in my eyes when I was told that I was
the first national leader to pay homage at the iconic Father Zimbabwe’s
memorial monument in Matsheumhlope.
For me, the late Dr Joshua Nkomo will always be a source of
inspiration, notwithstanding the regime’s perennial attempt to belittle and
undermine his national contribution.
He will always be an undisputed national hero and I
immediately ordered the Bulawayo City Council to ensure that the museum is
upgraded to a level of a strategic national institution that does not have to
pay rates to the local authority. The Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo museum is a
strategic national heritage state that honours the life of one of Zimbabwe’s
undisputed national heroes.
The Nkomo brand is a towering brand that must be accorded
veneration by all of us, especially the local authority that we control.
Sparing such an institution the obligation to pay rates will be the city’s own
humble way of paying tribute to the mammoth and indefatigable national brand
that was Joshua Nkomo.
The huge crowd that turned up at White City stadium on
Saturday in its own unique way answered its own questions and stood testimony
to the successful rebranding that the party has undergone and the growing
confidence and faith that the people continue to repose in our democratic
movement.
I saw the old and the desperate, the young and the
impatient, the restless and the carefree all ready to walk into a novel
moment----a new Zimbabwe.
Bulawayo showed it was a city all set to step out and meet
a new destiny. I saw a people ready and prepared to shake the hand of destiny
and to behold the new.
I engaged students, pastors, business leaders, ZIPRA
veterans, and persons with disability (PWDs), young entrepreneurs and ordinary
citizens. The enriching engagements were a stultifying odyssey into the dreams
and aspirations of the diverse sectors in the country’s second largest city who
all wish for the best for their country.
Thank you Bulawayo for showing the way.
Thank you for the memories!
Washing in the blood of our revolutionary struggle
While in Bulawayo, I felt the warmth of history and the
accompaniment of the spirit of our patriots who irrigated the tree of our
national independence with their own blood.
From the Joshua Nkomo museum, I went to Nkulumane to meet
with another distinguished son and war veteran---Jabulani Sibanda.
For one and half hours while at his home, we shared our
aspirations and the vision for the future of the country that both of us so
much love. At the end, we discovered we shared the same passion for a future with
multiple possibilities for the people of Zimbabwe.
This April being the independence month for us as a party
and as a leadership, I discovered that there was more that united us; that we
had the same unstinting affinity for our country and its people.
I discovered we suckled from the same breast of patriotism
and soon.
Thanks brother Jabu for the great conversation as we
prepare to step hand in hand into the new Zimbabwe that is coming in a few
months time.
I also noted that there have been outright distortions,
lies and spin around my visit to the Joshua Nkomo museum and my meeting with
Jabulani. Yet lies have temporary legs and the truth shall be revealed in the
fullness of time.
Going rural: Rural Zimbabwe here we come
After a brief foray into the city, we return to the rural
areas this coming weekend to take into the villages the gospel of the tripod
promise of transformation, opportunities and prosperity that undergird our
vision for the country.
Rural Zimbabwe is our focus in this election campaign. In
the next few months, we intend to step on every blade of grass in every village
in the rural outlays where the majority of our people live.
Our campaign will be largely rural and after heartening
trips to Murehwa and Chiweshe two weeks ago, we spread the Alliance leadership
into various rural areas from Manicaland to Tsholotsho, from Chirundu to Mount
Darwin to spread the message of the imminent change.
Our message is 2018 munhu wese kubasa (Everyone should go
to Work). Our message is 2018 dhora muhomwe (the dollar back in the pocket).
We intend to scatter ourselves throughout the country as we
take the gospel of transformation to the villages.
I will be covering several rural areas this coming weekend.
For those in the rural areas, come and let us reason together.
Come let us transact the true national business by sharing
our vision for a new Zimbabwe that sets in come September 2018.
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