ZwNews Chief Correspondent
You give a monkey the option to choose between money and a banana, it will go for the later, and one preacher once said; ‘If only you can show me your phone’s contacts list, I will tell you your destiny.’ At first one could not make the tail or head of what he meant. But later realized that he was simply saying the type of people you surround yourself with have a bearing on what you will become.
All in the same, one philosopher once said this; if you always spend your time with chickens, you will end up clucking.
Since coming to power, Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been preaching the re-engagement gospel, after taking over from a leader who believed in playing alone. The person who withdrew the country’s membership from the Common Wealth group of nations, thereby missing the benefits that goes with being a member.
Mnangagwa promised to reverse the country’s self imposed isolation, and in that, he was right.
In that sense, the President is billed to visit a number of countries beginning next week. However, it is the types countries he is expected to visit, that raise eyebrows, among them is Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan.
These visits are being referred to as state tours to enhance the engagement and re-engagement drive, as said by his presidential spokesperson George Charamba.
“The pending visits by the President are strategic, and Zimbabwe is expecting a huge number of agreements and memorandum of understandings to come out of these visits,” said Charamba.
However, some analysts have lambasted the President’s choice of countries, saying nothing meaningful will come out of the tours.
They say that there is nothing to read much into from the visits apart from following his predecessor’s globe trotting ventures, wasting taxpayers money.
Political commentator Elder Mabhunu says; “It is not the visits that count much, but whom are you visiting. Real engagement efforts should at least focus on the countries that counts.
“Former President Robert Mugabe used to do the same, and apart from coming back home with briefcases full of MoUs and the so-called mega deals, nothing meaningful materialised.
“It is now worrying that Mnangagwa has just and also chosen to kick the can down the same road,” he says.
According to another political commentator, Alex Magaisa, it defies all logic for one to settle less, he compares it to football, and says it would be a bad move for a player to settle for inferior league, when it is possible to go for the best.
As if as a result of coincidence, the list of countries that Mnangagwa is pencilled to visit were also some of Mugabe’s favourites from which nothing tangible materialised up to now.
