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Didymus Mutasa with journalist Fungi Kwaramba

God works in mysterious ways, oftentimes. The only problem is that we mere mortals, a foolish lot, do not always accept God’s wisdom or the greater good and glory of his ways. We often want to fight God in our foolishness, with our foolishness, oblivious of the greater good he wrought for us. God is always good. Talking about foolishness, think about one man called Didymus Mutasa, a guy who used to be considered a bigwig in the ruling zanu-pf party before he was ignominiously booted out of that institution, that elite club, for plotting the ouster of the leader of that same club, a man called Robert Mugabe.

Mutasa, no doubt with an eye on his own fortunes, supported Mugabe’s number two, which would bring him within sniffing distance of ruling the club and playground called Zimbabwe.

But he soon met grief, he and his co-conspirators from the intended immediate beneficiary Joice Mujuru, Rugare Gumbo, Ray Kaukonde, Dzikamai Mavhaire right to the very last yapping dogs like Temba Mliswa.

The whole conspiracy came crushing down, and down.

But it all began with the foolish restlessness and unbridled ambition. Needless to point out, these poor souls are wailing by the gates of Jerusalem.

But Mutasa is a different case altogether; let’s say he and Rugare Gumbo.

Since their fateful ouster from the ruling party, they have been fighting and fighting to show they are men enough to start their own kingdom and rule it.

Just as Satan would seek to rule in hell with his own set of laws, away from the authoritarian heaven of God.

Yet fate is not exactly smiling on these two gentlemen, these two Lucifers.

They are finding it hard to set up a Kingdom to rival heaven, a fact that has not been made easier by the fact that the biggest fallen angel called Joice Mujuru is playing coy and refusing to tell God to go to hell or be damned with his own Heaven without democracy.

It has really weakened their positions. They try to lead her on, she does not seem to take the bait. They nudge and egg her, she does not move.

In the end they put on brave but forlorn visages to face the world and announce that all is well in the rebel kingdom.

Only it is not. And when that becomes apparent, the two fallen angels put on even braver visages and separately pose as potential leaders of this fallen kingdom whose credentials they imagine are underlined by verbal bellicosities. Only, again, this is not particularly convincing or inspiring.

The owl that doesn’t have horns

Thanks in particular the Daily News which has appropriated itself as the mouthpiece of this fallen cabal, we have heard the bellicosity of Mutasa and Gumbo; seen the coyness of Mujuru; and we are richer as to the happenings in that kingdom for it.

So, all these days we have been having the two gentleman telling us about their project, and in particular the seeming never-come-true leadership of Joice Mujuru as a challenger to Mugabe.

In their own ways, Mutasa and Gumbo have tried to portray themselves as strong energetic warriors of the cause who might as well march to State House.

And, boy, you have to love it when the Daily News showers them with such epithets as “former Presidential Affairs minister”, “respected war veteran”, “fearless”, “struggle stalwart”; etc!

And somehow you begin to think that these men are real men — perhaps like they used to be before the fall.

We all know how powerful Mutasa was in his position in zanu-pf and as the self-anointed godfather of Manicaland Province. And when he speaks in the Daily News, and lately in the NewsDay, which in its wisdom, or lack of it, has decided to join the Daily News for Didymus devotion, you imagine Mutasa to be this huge, fearsome hulk of a revolutionary (in his counter-revolutionary way).

Only you will be wrong. Dead wrong. Thanks to a picture by the hard working spokesperson of Mutasa’s, one Fungi Kwaramba, whom we are told is the chief writer for Daily News, we now know that since Mutasa’s departure from zanu-pf, he has not only lost his political lustre.

He has lost the lustre of his skin, which the caressing air conditioned offices gave him in the comfortable years past in Government and he has now become a scrawny, shrivelled, sunken ancient. You would not mark him apart from any other villager at a ndari, the village brew. His beard white and unkempt; his head a grey savanna, no, this is not the Mutasa that Daily News ascribes to us as a stalwart, without using his latest pictures!

Surely, the owl does not have horns? We remember all too well how he went ballistic at one point when we mentioned something about dwarfish thieves in giant robes.

Here is an old man that desperately needs to be resting back in the village and not waste such precious time, some of his last days on earth, fighting a rebellion without a cause.

Perhaps, the problem lies with the Daily News.

Does Mr Kwaramba, who appears to be a giant himself in the picture that he posted on his Facebook page with Mutasa standing besides him like a species of Tolkien’s Gollum, not feel guilty at all by his constant abuse and misleading of the old man? God is watching you!

No less, we would appreciate a recent picture of another stalwart, Rugare Gumbo.
Grandfather father

By the way, there are more compelling reasons why Mutasa must just cut this crap and retire gracefully after a long journey in politics.
He is 80 years old and by all means, hear this, a father of a four-year-old child, probably the last among his brood. That four-year-old would really need the attention of the father, who for the first time, may have the golden opportunity to be with the family after years of politics.

Ordinarily, that kid would be Mutasa’s grandchild, or perhaps great-grandchild.
But it tells us something about the man, does it, he who is famed for his weakness for women.

And how does his family look like? He tells Daily News in an interview: “I have married quite a number of times and I have quite a number of children. My first wife gave me three children and I think those are the best known.

“Then I married my present wife Gertrude, we have two children together. I also have Sabina with whom I have one child and Sarudzai with whom I have three boys including the last one who is four years old.”

Surely, all these people would need him home with them, wouldn’t they? Yet somehow Mutasa has other ideas.
He imagines he is back to his heyday and as adventurous as ever. Daily News asks him, “I see you are spotting a beard these days, why?” and he responds, “I am going back to my youth days except that it is whiter while at that time it was nice and black. But I feel this white beard is not bad.” Goodness!

But that is not all.
He declares himself fit, amid health concerns, and to spite doubting Thomases, declares, “I can run as fast as my four-year-old boy”.