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WHEN Jonathan Mashingaidze sensed blood and launched his counter-attack, with both lightning speed and ferocious blows in Parliament on Thursday, there were shades of Muhammad Ali in the Rumble in the Jungle in Kinshasa exactly 40 years ago.I wasn’t in Parliament that day but such was the ferocity of the blows I felt them but, unlike George Foreman, who dominated seven rounds against Ali in Kinshasa only to be caught out in the counter attack in the eighth, I wasn’t knocked out.

Battered and bruised, I lived to fight another day, to confront the man who had turned his guns blazing at me, to try and find a reason why a man who holds such a public position of trust could become so allergic to the truth he could spin such a grand lie just to push his agenda forward.

It’s not that Mashingaidze’s cocktail of lies still surprise me, the way they have probably ceased to surprise Gerald Maguranyanga, the former fitness trainer of the Mighty Warriors, who called him a “pathological liar”, or former Warriors coach Ian Gorowa, who dubbed him a “habitual liar.”

I have come to understand Mashingaidze lying to Fifa that he has sent material that they want, as part of their exercises, even quoting non-existent DHL numbers, the same way I have come to understand his lies that his organisation would bring Manchester City, Real Madrid or Liverpool for their Jubilee Celebrations that were never held.

But, I have to say I found it surprising, if not shocking, that such lies could be spun, with such reckless abandon, in the company of lawmakers, without an element of respect for the constituency they represent, within the hallowed halls of the very institution where laws that govern us are made and amended.

Bathing in the heated jacuzzi waters that the parliamentary privilege provided him, which means he can’t be dragged to court to account for the lies he uttered, Mashingaidze revelled in the spotlight and turned on such a grand show he was certain, as he retired to bed on Thursday, he would be making front page headlines the following day.

Of course, his show was only good enough for the back page headlines, just managing to out-muscle the meaningless tale that the Warriors had been disbanded, the second time that this has happened under his watch, and CAPS United’s controversial defeat at the coalfields of Hwange that robbed them a chance to go top of the table.

The tragedy, unfortunately, is that it was another tale told by an idiot,, full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing and, sadly, it has become fashionable and it doesn’t need to be backed by evidence as Knowledge Musona and Ovidy Karuru found out — and two years after Mashingaidze accused them and promised to back it with evidence — nothing has come to substantiate those wild claims.

But, at least, Mashingaidze didn’t make those staggering claims in Parliament, or in the High Court, which is different from his stunning show on Thursday where, presenting himself before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, he made a mockery of the truth so much that, at the end, he must have been alarmed, too, by the fertility of the creativity of his imagination.

Even by his standards, which are quite exceptional for a man in a public position of trust, Mashingaidze outperformed himself on Thursday with an iconic man-of-the-match performance, that one unforgettable show that never fades from the memory, like the King, Peter Ndlovu, slaloming past the entire Bafana Bafana defence 22 years ago or Vitalis Takawira slamming a hat-trick against the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon.

He was, at his best, irresistible and, at his worst, he cast this figure of a victim who feared for his life, telling the parliamentarians that he has been kidnapped before, his voice at times appeared to crack and he needed time to compose himself, but when he started spraying the venom, he simply became unstoppable.

His target, as has been the case in his previous visits to Parliament in the past four years, were a group of journalists — Hope Chizuzu and Robson Sharuko — don’t be fooled by his decision to drag Josh Munthali into this, he wasn’t part of Mashingaidze’s plot, it was just a way of trying to give credibility to his grand plan.

I have always said that I’m not beyond criticism and neither am I a Saint and where I come short, where people feel that I have betrayed the trust that they have invested in me as a public servant, where they feel I have shamed the privileged position that my job as a journalist gives me, there is reason for them to throw all sorts of missiles into my corner, ask some tough questions and demand answers.

The same way that Mashingaidze is held to account, as and when he is deemed to have come short, in his discharge of public office, is the same way that I should also be held to account, as and when people feel that I have come short, in the discharge of public office.

But, what is important, is that everything should be backed by facts, by irrefutable evidence, and it should not be driven by a personal crusade to ensure that I destroy this and that man, a relentless mission to ensure that you tarnish the image of this guy and, even if you have done that for four years, and failed to achieve your mission, you continue doing it again and again and again.

THE LIES THAT JONATHAN KEEPS BEING RECYCLED

Yesterday, I personally wrote to the Speaker of Parliament, Jacob Mudenda, the Senior Secretary of Parliament, Austin Zvoma, and the chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Temba Mliswa, and members of that committee expressing my disappointment with what I felt was an abuse of the august House by Mashingaidze on Thursday.

My argument was that I felt Mashingaidze’s presentation was so pregnant with LIES, which he apparently was aware of but, for the sake of trying to further his cause, he kept making them without the decency of even rationing those LIES, at least for the sake of the august house where they were being delivered, which I argued was a gross violation of the privileges that parliament provide.

I told the Speaker that I’m a firm believer in the freedom of expression and speech and I have all the confidence in our legislature but that I have my reservations when appearances in the august house are reduced to something that could not be out of place in a village bar in Mhondoro or Gokwe.

Mashingaidze told Parliament that I “travelled a record 15 times to Asia with the national team”, I have been given a recording of his presentation and I don’t know how why the Zifa chief executive would make such a blatant LIE because, if he was a man who wanted to let the truth guide him, he would have told the committee that I travelled TWICE to Asia, to Malaysia and to Vietnam, the first two trips.

The Zifa chief executive would have told the committee that I went to Malaysia in August 2007 and then went to Vietnam in November of the same year and that four-month period, covering just TWO trips, cannot be twisted to become this huge story that Mashingaidze created when he told the committee that I “travelled a record 15 times to Asia with the national team.”

I wasn’t the best Maths student in my class, Solomon Banda, Samuel Mwale and Batsirai Mukumba were always way ahead,, but I don’t even need their levels of genius to see that there is a huge difference between FIFTEEN and TWO and what comes out is that, to make his case stronger, if not dramatic, Mashingaidze had to play around with figures, and that they don’t add up doesn’t matter.

They are used to that at Zifa House, aren’t they, because only last Friday they were telling councillors that the US$700 000 that the auditors couldn’t explain, in their accounts, was inherited from the old regime led by Wellington Nyatanga and, to give the impression that they were an organisation that wanted to forget the past and forge ahead, even posted a statement on their official website that they had decided “to let bygones be bygones.”

A few days later, when someone at Daily News questioned why Nyatanga was being roped in when these accounts were for 2011, Mashingaidze and his team had to change the tune and, suddenly, we were being fed that public-relations stuff that this was money that was owed to Cuthbert Dube, Ben Gwarada, people who are unlikely to question this, and even if the figures don’t add, who cares?

So, if you work in an environment where there is a culture of spinning figures and you can do so, to try and manage a figure like 700 000, chances are that you are likely to try and manage even the number of trips, which you claim someone undertook to Asia, just to ensure that it suits your wild imagination.

I told Mashingaidze, one day when I met him at a Harare hotel, that the problem with a witch hunt us that you lose all the senses of morality that should guide your probe and you become so obsessed with indicting an individual, at all costs, you are bound to make a big mistake, including putting it as fact that I have not only been to the Moon but I have also walked on Jupiter and Mars.

Mashingaidze can’t PROVE, for a fact, that I went to Asia 15 times, forget about his favoured period of 2007-2010 but in my lifetime, in my working time spread over 22 years, because there will never be facts to back such a LIE.

So, against that background, why then sustain that LIE, especially against the background that I furnished Ndumiso Gumede and his probe team with a detailed, written explanation, that consistently gives out the true picture that I went on two trips to Asia, and such communication, in written form, was also given by my lawyers to subsequent committees that looked into this issue?

But, let’s give Mashingaidze the benefit of doubt that, when he slips into a state of fury, when he senses blood and goes on the attack, he loses his ability to count from one to 15, I’m not sure that can be classified as the biggest abnormality that we have come across when it comes to humans.

But how does Mashingaidze make himself LIE that I even played in one of the matches that I covered, how is that possible, and given the graphic nature of such a LIE, doesn’t he see that he is stretching his web of lies so much that he is losing the plot?

Surely, can he produce evidence to back his nonsense that I featured in his imaginary match, in what role, and you can’t say that he was dazed because Mliswa asked him, quite clearly, if he was sure of what he was saying, and he said YES?

If this is not a violation of the privileges that parliament provides for its witnesses, then I’m not sure what it is but my hope is that Temba will ask Jonathan to provide his evidence and, given that he can’t, he should be charged, if he was under oath, with lying when you have sworn to tell the truth, nothing else but the truth?

Who are the coaches who will stand in his corner to say, YES, we fielded this man in this match, who are the players who will stand in his corner to say, YES, we had him as our over-aged and beefy teammate in this match, who are the travelling doctors who will stand in his corner to say, YES, we treated this man when he pulled his muscle, or in my case is it a case of that he pulled his fat, in this match?

Come on Mash, this is certainly sinking too low and, even by your standards, this blow below the belt is a shocker.

I’m sure Mashingaidze has already forgotten that they first accused me of being an assistant coach but, because the lie expired, he decided to spice it up with wild allegations, and he accuses me of being a player, in the same presentation that he accuses me of being the journalist whose job was to write rosy accounts of what was happening, and if this lie runs its course, I won’t be surprised to hear him say that Sharuko was the n’anga of the team during this trip and was paid for his services as a sangoma.

DOES MASHINGAIDZE REMEMBER SOMEONE CALLED ELISHA VHEREMU?

Elisha Vheremu was the Zifa finance and administration manager in 2004 when he was arrested for allegedly stealing US$2 000 and Z$40 000 from the association, the start of a three-year ordeal for the administrator.

Mashingaidze led the prosecution’s case, in his role as Zifa chief executive, and in his evidence painted the picture that Vheremu had indeed stolen the money from the association meant for the Warriors’ allowances.

But, in January 2007, Vheremu got his closure when magistrate Omega Mugumbate cleared him on all four counts saying the evidence at hand did not link him to the commission of the offence.

Vheremu had argued in court that he was being used as a mere scapegoat to cover up for the mismanagement at a Zifa office, led by Mashingaidze, and his lawyers submitted that the association, which by inference meant Mashingaidze, had cooked up the allegations against their client “to hide their incompetence and maladministration.”

As the case spectacularly disintegrated in the courtroom, every word used by the judge in its dismissal buttressed the accused’s claims that those who had laid charges against him had drawn up a giant web of lies to try and destroy him and every word, used in the dismissal of the case, was an indictment on Mashingaidze.

Of course, a leopard never changes its spots, but one would have expected that Mashingaidze picked some big lessons from that case but, it appears, 10 years after they tried to destroy Vheremu, they are still in the trenches and trying to frame other people and believing that, unlike then, they will win this time.

Suddenly, Tinashe Mapuranga is a bad boy who has to be outlawed from football, sure, sure, Joshua Khumalo is a bad boy who should be outlawed from football, everyone is bad, only Mashingaidze is the good man, the upright fellow and, in case you challenge him, he throws you out of his game.

The only certainty we have in life, Jonathan, is that change is inevitable and one fine day, things will change, the cruel emperor who wants to crush every dissenting voice and create his reality world of yes-men, from supporters right up to journalists, will meet his fate.

THE SMALL FAVOUR i DEMAND FROM JONATHAN

I think, after his stunning stand-up comic performance in parliament on Thursday, I just want Mashingaidze to have the courtesy to inform Temba Mliswa and his committee that, sometime in 2012, I paid US$6 000 to Zifa in Appeal Fees, contesting everything that the association was throwing at me, appeared before an Appeals Committee assembled by Zifa and why, two years down the line, there is only silence from them.

I had the courtesy to respect their structures, even when everyone was telling me that it was a lost cause and as a journalist I wasn’t answerable to them, because I had a genuine interest to clear my name and when I look at the bill, combined with the costs of the lawyers, it is something close to US$20 000.

I wasn’t the one who opened that window, it was Fifa who reminded Zifa not to turn themselves into little gods whose decision was final, and for respecting the association, humbling myself to appear before them, all in an effort to close this chapter, all I get is not the ruling of that Appeals Committee — two years later —  but venom from Mashingaidze saying all sorts of nonsense in parliament.

Is it asking for too much, after spending US$20 000 just trying to clear your name, to ask Zifa to give you the verdict — to tell me that you are guilty, to tell me that your guilty verdict has been overturned?

I’m not a lawyer but am I wrong, legally, to argue that, given that my appeal hasn’t been determined by an Appeals Committee appointed by the association, it was sub-judice for Jonathan to explode in parliament on Thursday, if he had any respect for the judicial structures that they appoint, or maybe he is giving us an impression that these judicial structures don’t mean a thing because he, as boss, calls the shots?

Why have these judicial bodies then if you can treat them with such contempt, including in a case that is before them, whose determination might be affected by what you say, especially the drama you create in parliament, how is possible now to ensure that justice should not only be done but should also be seen to have been done?

Can you still be expected to serve justice when you delay it, the way Zifa have done, and doesn’t Mashingaidze’s explosion in parliament, coming as it does in the middle of a judicial process being undertaken by an Appeals Committee, made up of two of the brightest Advocates we have in this country and a veteran football administrator, make it virtually impossible for justice to be served?

Last Saturday, Cuthbert Dube called me for a meeting at his home and, if I’m as rotten as Mashingaidze is trying to preach, why is it that his boss is still holding a meeting with me discussing football?

I don’t know, but let me sign out before I am accused of having played for Tanzania, when they eliminated us, of having played for Lesotho, who qualified for the group stages of the 2015 Nations Cup qualifiers or having played for Botswana.

To God Be The Glory!
Come on United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chicharitoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
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