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You don’t say, Mr.
Mugabe!
E. Ablorh-Odjidja
October 8, 2007
If I allowed myself a moment to think that
President Mugabe said what he was reported by News24 to
have said, I would say to myself that something serious
had gone wrong with our esteemed revolutionary leader.
“Stop stealing our skills!” our once illustrious
leader was reported to have said.
President Mugabe or members of his government are
asking neighboring African countries in Africa to stay
off poaching for professionals, experts, and skilled
workers from Zimbabwe, at least those still left in his
country.
The surprise is that there are still professionals
left in Zimbabwe, despite the overwhelming difficulties
of the past ten years, brought on this nation by the
disastrous policies of the Mugabe government.
Those professionals left in Zimbabwe must be the
most ardently patriotic, given the tough times that many
of the old nationals went through.
Many of these stood shoulder to shoulder with
Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo during the “Bush Wars.”
Despite the hardships, the built-in patriotism of
these nationals lasted.
Even so, there is still a limit to what one could
do for a country.
So, many left when Mugabe exerted his control
over the country.
As a result, thousands of skilled workers left
Zimbabwe; both Blacks and whites.
They eft the farms, the factories, the workshops,
and the school buildings.
Some left wives, families, and properties because
of the acute economic crisis that Mugabe brought and
which left Zimbabwe tethering on the brink of a failed
state.
So, to read News24’s recent quote that Culture
Minister Aeneas Chigwedere says that “the government
would approach its southern African neighbors to ask
them to stop taking Zimbabwe's teachers,” is to wonder
why the minister doesn’t understand why the
professionals are leaving in the first place.
However, factors that are now seriously at work
against the maintenance of a stable skilled labor force,
and consequently, the viability of the economy at home.
The “pull factor” from the neighboring countries,
that is aiding the migration, the minister will soon
realize, is aided hugely by internal conditions at home
in Zimbabwe.
But, there are some in the West, comfortably at
rest in the Diaspora, who do not believe that there is
anything harmful about Mugabe's policies in Zimbabwe.
The thinking is that Mugabe is a hero and that he
is the most progressive African leader since Nkrumah.
I suppose this kind of accolade must post a
problem for those of us who love Nkrumah since the
result of Mugabe’s policies are not the same as
Nkrumah’s.
“What we need is to sit down with the neighboring
countries and make sure that they apply to the
government for teachers, instead of poaching the
teachers," the reportage on Culture Minister Chigwedere
continued.
But why should these neighboring countries bother?
They are practicing policies that are different from
Mugabe’s.
The exodus of skilled workers from Zimbabwe benefits
them. There
are already too many of them in these countries working
as economic refugees - to and for the benefit of these
host countries!
Zimbabwe was once a place where other Africans
fled for succor.
Zimbabwe was stable and doing well.
Early in the eighties, when Ghana had a problem,
many of her citizens fled to Zimbabwe.
South Africa, not yet independent then, looked to
Zimbabwe as a model for a future post-apartheid state.
A land that was once more prosperous than the
majority of many states in Africa has now been reduced
to a chronic shortage of almost everything.
The inflation rate alone is soaring towards
8000%.
And President Mugabe, at 83, is said to be going
nowhere, at least not in any direction away from the
presidency.
The recent rumored attempt about some from his
inner circle to oust him was given credence by Mugabe
when he told reporters that some of his sides have
consulted “traditional healers under the cover of
darkness,” to get rid of him.
That attempt has effectively been quashed.
One of the beneficiaries of the rumored ouster
said then to be a sure-shot replacement for the Mugabe
throne, is current Vice-President Joyce Mujuru.
Mujuru is a member of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party. She
also happens to be the wife of a very influential former
general of the Zimbabwe army, Solomon Mujuru.
It must also be noted that it is Mugabe who
brought Joyce to public prominence, at least
politically.
Two days ago, Joyce Mujuru came out to declare
that she would not contest against Mugabe under any
circumstance and to also proclaim her devotion to the
aging ruler.
"I was groomed by Mr. Mugabe to what I am,”
according to Mujuru, so please “don't force me into the
presidential throne. Don't force me where I don't fit.
Mr. Mugabe appointed me to my current position so that I
could help him."
With her loyalty sadly pronounced, she is welcome
to stay out of presidential politics.
But is there any chance in the future that she
and her army general husband will be forced into exile
because they represent a threat?
In the meantime, Cultural Minister Chigwedere is
said to be promising new graduates and current teachers
improvement in wages and conditions of employment, while
the same teachers are on strike, marching in the streets
of Harare.
Teachers, magistrates, prosecutors have all lined
up ready for strikes and to demand huge pay increases
amid an economy that is dwindling fast.
The push factors continue to rage.
It remains to be seen how Zimbabwe can
realistically prevent these skilled professionals from
drifting out of the country.
E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publsiher www.ghanadot.com,
Washington, DC, October 8, 2007
Permission to publish:
Please feel free to publish or
reproduce, with credits, unedited.
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