ZANU PF acting spokesperson Patrick Chinamasa yesterday took praise-singing to a new level, describing President Emmerson Mnangagwa as the country’s own Mbuya Nehanda, an ancient ancestral spirit from the 19th century considered holy and powerful in local lore.
Mnangagwa’s government is constructing a giant stature of
Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana, a spirit medium also known as Mbuya Nehanda at the
intersection of Samora Machel Avenue and Julius Nyerere Way in the capital
Harare.
Charwe, who was among the leaders of the First Chimurenga
war against colonisation in the 19th century, was hanged around March 1898.
Addressing a weekly Zanu PF Press briefing, Chinamasa said
while in the past former colonial masters, Britain, beheaded revolutionaries,
they had turned to social media attacks in modern-day to “discredit icons like
Mnangagwa” who were working for economic emancipation.
He said social media attacks on Mnangagwa and his family
were equal to the attacks faced by the likes of Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi
during the early resistance to colonialism.
“Allow me to draw parallels between, on one hand the public
beheading of Mbuya Nehanda, Sekuru Kagivi, Chief Mashayamombe, Mutekedza
Chiwashira and other anti-colonial resistance fighters,” Chinamasa said.
“On the other hand, the imposition of illegal sanctions by
the European Union, United Kingdom, United States, white Commonwealth
countries, Australia, Canada and New Zealand accompanied by the orchestrated
social media onslaught targeting President Mnangagwa and his family.”
He added: “It is to intimidate our leader with the
intention to cow the general population into submission and subjugation.
“The enemy goes after the scalp of our leader first and
they hope that once he has fallen and is discredited the country’s resources
will be ready for the picking and neo-colonial exploitation.”
Chinamasa said Mnangagwa was the glue holding the country
together and that Western countries were aware of this and, therefore, want him
to fall.
Zanu PF is preparing to erect Mbuya Nehanda’s statue at a
venue Mnangagwa claimed was where she would drink water and rest.
Mbuya Nehanda was allegedly beheaded by the British
imperialists for leading resistance against white settler rule.
Chinamasa said the humiliation suffered by Nehanda, was the
same as that being visited upon Mnangagwa through relentless social media
demonisation sponsored by Western countries.
“Sanctions against Zimbabwe and the orchestrated social
media attacks against our President and First Family are the modern-day
equivalents of public beheading and lynching in colonial times,” Chinamasa
said.
Chinamasa called on the nation to back Mnangagwa against
the white colonialists as the party prepares for the 2023 general elections.
“Zanu PF exhorts the population to remain steadfast and
resilient and to continue marching solidly behind our President along the path
that will lead us to the attainment of Vision 2030 to become an upper-middle
income economy,” he said.
This was not the first time Zanu PF has fawned over
Mnangagwa. Soon after the November 2017 coup, his deputy, Constantino Chiwenga
who led the coup equated him to the biblical Joshua and his late predecessor,
the late Robert Mugabe as Moses who had failed to take the people to the
Promised Land.
“President Mnangagwa was anointed by God himself to lead
this nation. Together with his wife (Auxillia), they were put here so that they
lead the sheep of God,” Chiwenga said then.
“Moses was delinquent. He took the people out of Egypt, but
along the way, he broke the laws and it took Joshua to deliver the children to
the land of milk and honey. As you go to vote in the coming elections, I want
you to know who your Joshua is.”
Chinamasa also turned the heat on MDC Alliance’s
vice-president Tendai Biti, whom he accused of perpetrating gender-based
violence, calling the police to move in and arrest him.
“We condemn very strongly the allegations of gender-based
violence that are being levelled against Biti where he (sic) mishandled a lady
at the Harare Magistrates Court and Zanu PF calls upon the law enforcement
agents to thoroughly investigate that issue without fear or favour and to take
the necessary action that is warranted by the evidence that comes out of the
investigation,” he said.
Chinamasa said leaders should not be in the forefront of
abusing women. “In this day and age, we do not expect leaders or persons who
are aspiring to be leaders of Zimbabwe and who are already leaders of the
opposition to be the key culprits in perpetuating and perpetrating gender-based
violence,” he said. Newsday
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