Mr President, sir – it is always your fault!
As the country burns, the flames are so clear to see for everyone across the political divide, it is more that bewildering to find that the man presiding over such a disaster refuses to take responsibility and do the honourable thing – resign.
The president of this sinking ship, Robert Mugabe, has to take full responsibility for all the rot that this country is witnessing.
He should stop viewing himself as some sort of a god-sent messiah, as his ever-present bootlickers are so fond of telling him.
He is a mere mortal who has dismally failed his own people and his own country – and it is about time he and his supporters accepted this fact.
One very important lesson Mugabe apparently failed to grasp about leadership is that: the leader takes the blame for everything that goes wrong – in other words, it is always the leader’s fault.
We all love to take up leadership positions and the associated privileges, but, somehow, we do not want to take up the responsibilities.
Leadership is not all about power and prestige, but is about taking responsibility.
The higher the position, the greater the responsibilities one has to bear.
However, in Zimbabwe, we seem to have a skewed view of leadership, such that the higher one climbs, the more complacent they become and not taking responsibility for anything.
Our country is failing as a result of bad governance issues, because our leaders come to work late, go home earlier than anyone else, and spend most their day just barking orders and virtually doing nothing.
Yet it should be the complete opposite: leaders have to work the longest hours than anyone else – actually, the higher one rises, the more hours one has to work – and the more workload one has to take up, as well as, taking all the blame for anything that goes wrong under one’s department.
It is so sad whenever I hear the President and those in his ZANU PF government always placing the blame for the country’s mess on others – it is either sanctions, or the opposition, or drought – but never themselves.
That is the height of irresponsibility and bad governance. Mr President, sir – it is always your fault!
That is what being a president means – it comes with the territory.
Besides the fact that Mugabe, indeed is responsible for the destruction of Zimbabwe through his flawed partisan policies, the position itself of presidency demands that he takes full responsibility for anything that goes wrong.
That is why in the recent United Kingdom (UK) Brexit referendum, Prime Minister David Cameron resigned soon after his country chose to leave the European Union (EU).
He resigned because he had been the leader of the camp that wanted the UK to remain in the EU.
In the ZANU PF way of reasoning, there was no reason for David Cameron to resign because it was not his fault that Britons decided to leave the EU – in fact, if it were Mugabe, he would have easily found people to blame for this.
A case in point is the 2000 constitutional referendum in which the Mugabe and ZANU PF-designed Constitution was rejected.
He did not take responsibility for that defeat – instead blamed the UK and her allies, and the White people in Zimbabwe, especially commercial farmers – leading to the violent farm invasions.
That is how Mugabe and ZANU PF function.
However, in a true democracy, where real leadership values are treasured, the opposite would have happened.
As in the Brexit referendum, David Cameron took full responsibility as the leader and resigned – that is the mark of a true leader, and the type of leadership Zimbabwe deserves.
Cameron could have decided to blame the Brexit vote on racists, fascists and even immigrants, but he did not.
He knew he had to take responsibility as a leader.
Zimbabweans now need to take charge of their own country, and refuse to be held at ransom by a selfish and arrogant leadership.
We need to put in place systems that will ensure that leaders are held accountable for anything that goes wrong in the nation.
A leader should not be allowed to resort to excuses every time anything goes wrong in a country – they should get it in their heads that, it will always be their fault.
A person who can not comprehend that basic principle of leadership does not deserve any position of leadership.
A leader is supposed to take full control of whatever entity they are in charge of, as such, any failure within that entity clearly shows that the leader failed in his or her duties.
If it were true, for example, that Zimbabwe was under sanctions, a great leader would have put in place effective systems that would buffer the effects of those sanctions.
During the Rhodesia era, the country was under immense United Nations economic sanctions, was blockaded by all her neighbours – except apartheid South Africa – and there was a civil war.
The Ian Smith government did not just sit back and spend their time whining, and blaming everybody – except themselves – for everything that went wrong.
They had every ‘good’ reasons to blame any problems the country faced on sanctions, economic blockage by neighbours, and of course even blame it on the ‘terrorists’.
However, the Ian Smith regime took leadership, and got to work to ensure that effective systems were put in place to mitigate the effects of all those negative forces on the country.
They ensured that Rhodesia became a very efficient self-reliant country, which became the envy of the world – such that, at Independence in 1980, Rhodesia’s economy was amongst the strongest.
That is what great leadership is all about.
Therefore, when a leader fails to steer his or her country in the right direction – no matter what the challenges are, and no matter what counter – forces the country is facing – then that leader has failed, must take full responsibility and resign.
Great leadership includes innovativeness, ingenuity and exception ingenious.
If one does not have those, and can not quickly come up with solutions to whatever challenges the country is facing, then he or she had failed, and must go.
Zimbabwe is burning. People are suffering, and the president clearly has no clue what to do next, yet he want to stand in the 2018 elections!
To make matters worse, the suffering of the people is a direct consequence of his own flawed economic policies, and gross human rights abuses.
Therefore, instead of beating up, arresting, abducting and harassing people who are genuinely expressing their constitutional rights, the ZANU PF government should accept failure.
People are truly suffering at the hands of this government and Mugabe should accept that – instead of acting arrogantly towards the suffering masses.
Mugabe has clearly proven that he has failed as a leader, and as expected of any bad leader, he will never accept responsibility and resign, as such, it is completely up to Zimbabweans to ensure that in 2018 he is booted out.
