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I am “seized” with the desire to fill in the PM with the goings-on in our country when he was away, in as much as some of the continental leaders were “seized” with the goings-on in Zimbabwe.

This is because so much happens when someone travels away from home, even though I wish to say that the places he goes for more hand-holding, are not where solutions for the challenges facing this country are. Those people can only listen, but will not cast votes in Zimbabwe. They have diplomatic missions in Zimbabwe and the region, which can be effectively used to create a conducive environment for attaining a credible election result.

I also want to fill in the PM with bits and pieces of events that took place in the countries he visited, countries that are supposed to ensure that Zimbabwe holds a free, fair and credible election.

The PM’s spokesperson Luke Tamborinyoka told the world that the so-called “diplomatic offensive” was meant to “sensitise heads of states on developments in Zimbabwe (and that) Sadc and the African Union should ensure that the environment is conducive to the holding of a free and fair election.”

Other reports said that the PM wanted “African leaders to nudge President Mugabe towards accepting pre-election conditions the MDC-T has set.”
We will take the PM for his word. However, with celebrations of the golden jubilee of the founding of the African Union around the corner, we see yet again desperate attempts to make Zimbabwe an issue.

Let’s start with home affairs. While the PM was winding down his air show on May 5, President Mugabe was telling Zimbabweans that the life of the inclusive Government would come to an end on June 29, by which time; a new dispensation should be in place.

I wondered whether on arrival the PM would make a U-turn in order to apprise the leaders he met about these latest developments and that he had not been consulted.
That very weekend, Directors-General of Intelligence and Security Services were arriving in Harare for a week-long 10th Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (Cissa) conference, which started on May 6 under the theme, “The Nexus between Africa’s Natural Resources, Development and Security”.

By hosting such a conference, which is being attended by security and intelligence personnel from all over Africa and beyond, we are learning that in the 21st century, intelligence, after all is not a dirty word.

But I digress. These guys are exactly what PM Tsvangirai’s air shows are targeting, as security sector reforms becomes one of the pre-requisites to holding free and fair elections. Wasn’t the PM aware of this very important conference whose recommendations would be taken to the African Union?

Isn’t it also ironic that one of the PM’s destinations, Nigeria is where Cissa was actually formed on August 26, 2004? I’ll get back to Africa’s most populous and oil-rich nation.
But, there is more that happened while you were away, PM. Luminaries of a free Zimbabwe died and were buried. Although Mbuya Matadzisei Tangwena died before your departure, she was laid to rest in your absence. So too, Mbuya Charlotte Msipa!

It was extraordinary that on May 1, President Mugabe was in Gweru for Mbuya Msipa’s burial, and the following day he attended Mbuya Tangwena’s burial in Nyanga.
On May 2, your party issued a statement on Mbuya Tangwena’s heroine status, but action on the ground should have seen the MDC-T top’s leadership walking the talk by burying this heroine.

When a leader criss-crosses the country, burying some comrades-in-arms, then you realise that we live in different moments and our priorities are similarly different.
People craned their necks, looking for the PM, but he was nowhere to be found, except hearing reports that he had now met with so and so, and after this, he would be heading to such and such a country.

Then there was the week-long social, cultural and artistic event — the Harare International Festival of the Arts (Hifa) — a space that brought people from different parts of the world to just chill out and connect in a Zimbabwe that the MDC would want to portray as no man’s land.

May 1 was Workers’ Day, and when I checked reports from the different media outlets, the message was the same: nothing to write home about for Zimbabwe’s workers.
What happened to this day, which saw our PM transformed from a labour leader to an opposition politician?

Dear reader, you might think that the issues I raise are immaterial to the MDC-T leader’s mission. But, the combination of South Africa, Gabon and Nigeria brings back memories of Libya in 2011. Current events in Libya are testimony of what that complicity did to Africa’s standing.

Your first port of call was South Africa on April 28 when you met President Jacob Zuma who is also facilitator in the Zimbabwe situation. I wondered how much President Zuma was really taking in considering that he has a plateful of challenges to contend with.

From the ill-fated South Africa National Defence Forces’ mission in the Central African Republic, to events surrounding former president Nelson Mandela, to the diplomatic spat with Zambia and much more. Now, there is the mother of them all, the Gupta wedding scandal.

From South Africa, you headed to Tanzania on April 29 where you met President Jakaya Kikwete, Chairman of the Troika of the Political, Defence and Security Organ of the Southern African Development Community. President Kikwete listened, and this was followed by more photo shoots.

However, as the PM arrived in Harare on Sunday, the peaceful atmosphere in Tanzania was shattered when alleged terrorists attacked worshippers in a Roman Catholic Church, resulting in two deaths and dozens of injuries.

In Angola, you met the foreign affairs minister instead President Eduardo dos Santos. Reports are that Namibian President Hifikipunye Pohamba snubbed you.
Then on May 2, you met Gabonese president Ali Bongo Ondimba who chairs a Central Africa regional group. Three things stand out about President Bongo Ondimba. He is reportedly one of the richest leaders in Africa.

President Bongo Ondimba also succeeded his father President Omar Bongo, who ruled Gabon from 1967 until his death in 2009. Thus Gabon has been ruled by the Bongo family for close to five decades. We hope that our Prime Minister took note of this family affair.

On April 25, when President Barack Obama released a list of gifts he got in 2011, eyebrows were raised because the award for Most Lavish Foreign Dignitary went to Gabon. President Bongo Ondimba gave a gift worth US$52 695. President Obama reportedly turned it down because it “would cause embarrassment to donor and US Government”. (nationaljournal.com)

The little that Tamborinyoka said was that “after the PM’s presentation in Libreville, the Gabon leader said Zimbabweans should be allowed to express themselves in a credible poll, (and that) all African leaders need to be seized with the problems in Zimbabwe until they were resolved through an election whose results would not be contestable.”

He was off to Nigeria to meet President Goodluck Jonathan. A day after PM Tsvangirai met President Jonathan whose nation is dealing with one terrorist act after another as the Islamist group Boko Haram leashes out deadly violence, disaster struck in Taraba state resulting in the deaths of 39 people. Violence, violence, violence!
Cote d’Ivoire was next and our PM met President Allassane Ouattara, who is also head of the West African regional bloc Ecowas.

But, events on the ground in Cote d’Ivoire seem different. According to a report by the New Democrat of Liberia, published on April 30, ex-rebels control Cote d’Ivoire. You heard me — “ex-rebels”!: “United Nations experts monitoring sanctions on Ivory Coast say rebels who helped bring President Alassane Ouattara to power are not only commanding the nation’s armed forces but are raking in millions of dollars from illegal smuggling and a parallel taxation system. In a 297-page report to the Security Council . . . , the panel said government efforts to tackle the illegal exploitation of natural resources are ineffective because of this “military-economic network” entrenched in the national administration . . . ”

The PM seemed to have touched base with the right links — Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone Africa.
But, I wondered why he did not go to Arab Africa, and why President Armando Guebuza who currently holds the presidency of Sadc was sidelined? Was it because of recent skirmishes by former rebel movement, Renamo, or the real truth is that Sadc leaders gave the MDC-T a lukewarm reception?

Whatever the purpose of the air shows, the so-called diplomatic offences as a bargaining chip are now a tired fad. We cannot continue to duck reality, and that reality is the ballot box where everyone’s fate will be decided.

PM Tsvangirai should also realise that despite the problems Zimbabwe has faced, they can only overcome if they stand united. Zimbabwe needs to move on.