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Richard Mahomva

LAST Saturday President Mnangagwa was in Binga at Kariyangwe Secondary School under Chief Siansali to officiate at the national culture month celebrations in tandem with the continental celebration of Africa Day. 

Such a pleasure to see the Head of State in once forgotten parts of our country. 

The gesture itself was not only ceremonial, but it affirmed the man’s ideological commitment to pan-Africanism. 

The Government’s role in convening a festivity of this magnitude further expresses Zimbabwe’s unflinching ideological particularism to African liberation and unity.  

As already indicated in my last piece in this publication, Africa needs  transformative leadership to steer the cause of sustainable development. 

Therefore, it is no mistake that the President returned to Binga in less than six months. Last time his feet touched the BaTonga soil, fishing rigs were distributed. 

By ensuring that each village has a fishing rig he was merely spurring community empowerment into action. He is merely lending peasants capital to transform the fishery economy of Binga. 

The irrefutable consequences of such an approach are felt at a personal level by the beneficiaries. 

Collectively poverty would be fought. Children will be sent to school and access to medicine and decent livelihood basics will be increased. The ordinary villager’s buying power will be increased.  

Consequently, superficial donor dependence will be washed off. 

The effects of this type of organic leadership transcends euphoric cyber demonisation of the Zanu PF-led Government. 

ED’s Africa Day Souvenir to Binga

This time around President Mnangagwa’s gift to Binga was a ground-breaking ceremony for a clinic in Mabobolo Village, commissioning classroom blocks at Mabobolo Secondary School, under Chief Pashu.

In so doing, the myth of Matabeleland marginalisation is deconstructed and the inevitable substance of the constitutionally dictated devolution agenda is brought to the fore. 

The man is simply constitutional! He is not posturing when he proclaims the Second Republic’s oath of “Leaving No One and No Place Behind”. 

The Future: For All, To See!

While Binga is a minor sample of the President’s citizen-centric approach to power, other emerging political parties must emulate this example.  

Leadership must have a pragmatic bearing to public interest. Good leadership is about being with the people, experiencing their struggles and curating policy from an experiential standpoint. 

After this unique moment to rub shoulders with their leader Cde Mnangagwa, the people of Binga will not take any lie that the Government does not care about them. 

Attesting to this fact, my boss Nick Mangwana rhetorically tweets: 

“In less than a year, 40 boreholes have been drilled in 40 villages in Binga. 15 out of 17 chiefs have had boreholes drilled and installed as well. Imagine how this place will be in 2 years! How about 5 more years?”

Mr Secretary!

The People of Binga now owe it to themselves to vote correctly because the election is around the corner. 

The people of Binga just need to vote for a leader that has the courtesy to interact with them. 

Rest assured the BaTonga will only vote for a man they have heard speak in their own language. President Mnangagwa is that man. 

Dear Boss!

Binga will be transformed into an optimal destination of capital. Donor dependence will fall. Tourism will be upscaled.  

Unparalleled infrastructure development will follow. The classroom blocks commissioning this Saturday is symbolic of the intensification of human capital development in Binga.

And who knows? We might have a Binga State University five years from now. Pardon my ambitious policy fetish, but in five years Binga might be our second home — away from the public service delivery haemorrhaged Harare!

Richard Runyararo Mahomva is the Director for International Communications in the Ministry of Information and Publicity. He writes in his own capacity