By Wonder Bvungura
As predicted, the much hyped Southern African Development Community SADC Summit (Sadhaki) summit came and went without so much as a whimper or a bang.
It was quite underwhelming, Sadhaki has failed to transmogrify from a former liberation movement club to a real regional grouping underpinned by values of good governance as we were promised.
The 44th Ordinary SADC Summit for Heads of State and Government, turned out to be every square inch a farce that it promised to be. A colossal non-event it was!
The streets had an uneasy, if contrived sense of calm; one could touch the pall of terror hanging in the air owing to the ubiquitous presence of the notorious security details.
The capital was crawling with the cops armed to their underwears, with truncheons and heavens know what else.
It was an obscene North Korea-sque show of force by ED and his henchmen, something that would make Ivan the terrible look like a school boy.
It was plain farcical to see ED’s investiture as SADC chairperson, at the new parliament building being handed a gavel or something similar, giggling through his vast gap-toothed smile like a child in a candy shop.
One should have seen ED’s face , it was a dream come true, his long-held dream to become president and later SADC chair had fructified.
Many people do not seem to understand ED’s unhealthy appetite for power. The man is on a power accumulation enterprise – collection of untrammelled power.
For the uninitiated, ED had long haboured presidential ambitions from the time of the unsanctioned Tsholotsho meeting in 2004 to the coup allegations involving seven soldiers in 2007, who were jailed for it and ultimately, the coup of 2017.
But then who would not want to be a do-nothing African president with a retinue of lackeys, hangers-on and praise singers at your beck and call, a president who cannot walk and sing at the same time.
The new parliament building in Mt Hampden was the theatre of all these theatrics, itself resplendent with a Chinese flag, no less, hoisted aloft.
What an egregious eyesore, a mammoth PR malfunction and a telling subtext for people who mindlessly mouth “nyika inovakwa nevene vayo”.
It was even more comical to see pretenders like Cde Lovemoney Madhuku, Cde Douglas “Raa, raa” Mwonzora and one Sengezo Tshabangu in attendance and being namechecked as the leader of opposition in Zimbabwe.
Just like any vain dictator , ED was so pleased by lickspittles praising him and also holding court to his regional chums as was seen on the morrow of the summit at Geo Pomona waste management.
For obvious reasons, the role to call ED to the podium , this time around , was entrusted to Kembo Mohadi, otherwise it would have been cringeworthy to hear repubrik, rebhara and some such atrocious elocution, before a regional audience.
Kembo Mohadi launched into a grovelling hagiography of his boss before inviting him to address an equally captive audience.
When it was ED’s turn to speak, it was easy to see why Zimbabwe is stuck in a cesspool. He had the temerity to call Kembo Mohadi “a young man”.
“This young man (Kembo Mohadi) says he wants to be (president) like me.
“But then, he has to escape hanging, ingest a poisonous substance and survive and skip the border after 3 days, like I did,” ED said drawing mirthless guffaws from the crowd.
See? ED suffers from a wonky sense of reality. Can Mohadi, be called a young man by any measure?
The same Mohadi who was in the news recently for having collapsed at a public event because he was tired? Stranger than fiction!
In ED’s wisdom or lack thereof, skipping the border is the stuff for heroes. Shame!
Zimbabweans are skipping the borders in their thousands every day running away from their country thanks to ED’s tired leadership.
After all is said and done, it was better to watch grass grow than watch such a festival of tomfoolery and a power accumulation crusade.
These people love power and empty titles you must hear them calling each other “doctor this and that” or retired general so and so.
For the staid Zanu PF broadcaster DeadBC the just ended summit was an opportunity for an orgy of self-congratulations.
When addressing ED, they are not even sure which one should come first Comrade, President of Zimbabwe, SADC chair or Doctor.
Being an academic doctor is overrated in Zimbabwe.
Until next Sadhaki summit
Yours; Sadhaki citizen
Chitova out!
