Zimpapers Logo

Prof Moyo

“You do not know me,” said tortoise. “I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself.”

This snippet is from celebrated Nigerian author Chinua Achebe’s best-selling novel: “Things Fall Apart” where the writer tells how folklore explains how the tortoise got its shells.

There is also the story on contamination, with the saying that it is easy for one bad apple to spoil the whole box.

It is unfortunate that in the midst of a bumper harvest, a feat last experienced by our farmers years ago, instead of all of us concentrating on what this good harvest means and mapping the way forward, we are seized with negative sentiments coming from detractors of the Government and private sector-driven Command Agriculture Programme; detractors who think they have the best minds.

How sad and pathetic too.

Like the tortoise who fooled all birds that had assisted him with their feathers, in order for him to attend a feast in the skies, and ended up getting all the food because of his assumed name “All of You”, these people are doing the same at the expense of the national interest — thinking for all of us.

When we say it is well, they say the contrary.

It is now public knowledge that not only does Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo have too many misgivings about Government programmes such as Command Agriculture, but his attitude to this and others is a negation of responsibilities bequeathed to him as a Cabinet Minister and Politburo member in the ruling Zanu-PF party.

He has managed to fool those drawn to his tweets, all meant to seek the attention he lost when he was reassigned from the Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Ministry. But this is not the United States where a dark horse Donald Trump became the national and global talking point because of his freakish use of the social media platform, Twitter.

We continue to wonder why he remains untouchable when he continually ignores President Mugabe’s call to stop discussing party and Government issues on social media.

One does not have to be an Albert Einstein to see that the story is larger than we see, and its agenda does not bode well for the ruling Zanu-PF party and Government.

It is an agenda whose motive can be extrapolated from the obsessive love and protection of the First Family.

We are also not that foolish when someone wants to be the king-maker, but under the layer of that talk, it is quite evident that this is an individual carving out a niche for himself.

But, like Okonkwo, the main protagonist in Achebe’s novel, you also see that below this bravado is nothing, but fear and pride, the very elements that caused his downfall. Okonkwo was manly, but he had a proud heart that looked down on others, including his own father.

A gentle reminder: Command Agriculture is one of the few programmes in recent years to steer the turnaround of the economy, and make the 2013 election promises a reality.

Being the devil in the detail will not derail it, because people are poised to move on, just as they were with the land reform programme.

Some local leaders have since taken Zim-Asset and programmes like Command Agriculture to the people so that they are implemented at household level, and the media has the responsibility to inform and educate the people on what is happening on the ground.

The media (both public and privately-owned) can ill-afford to concentrate its meagre resources on one individual.

Zimbabweans might think that this is a Zanu-PF problem, but we must ask ourselves: Is this how we thank the Lord for the blessings the nation got in 2017?