The MDC Alliance Youth Assembly is deeply concerned about the news that Emmerson Mnangagwa’s cabinet has approved the re-establishment of the so-called National Youth Service Programme.

While the idea of the National Youth Service is a noble one as is the case in other parts of the world, it is the nurture in which it has been done and abused in Zimbabwe in the past that makes it suspicious.

In particular the way in which the youths were used as instruments of terror in previous elections.

In the past the National Youth Service became a reproduction machine for violent thugs for ZANU PF with neither skills nor sense of genuine patriotism.

The ‘green bombers’ as products of National Youth Service are infamously referred to were trained as party militia who were unleashed on their very own parents ahead and post 2008 harmonised elections.

Limbs and lives were lost at hands of thugs churned out from a political party controlled National Youth Service!

Sadly the people who were at the forefront of this kind of a National Youth Service that caused our people untold suffering during Robert Mugabe’s time, are the very same criminals who are now pushing for its re-establishment now.

Mnangagwa is very much afraid of a peaceful, free and fair electoral contest against a popular and youthful Nelson Chamisa ahead of the 2023 showdown.

He knows very well that 2023 is his Waterloo hence these desperate attempts to resuscitate a National Youth Service to be used as merchants of violence and intimidation as we head towards elections.

It is also important to note that the idea of a re-establishment of National Youth Service is being mooted at the same time the regime is pushing for the introduction of a Patriotic Bill to insulate Mnangagwa from scrutiny by citizens.

What is important to note here is that Mnangagwa is pursuing his one party stage agenda using both lawfare and coersion.

The coersive part is where the National Youth Service is coming in to force citizens to vote for ZANU PF in 2023 elections.

As the MDC Alliance Youth Assembly we are totally against the re-establishment of the National Youth Service especially given that it is being driven by a political party to pursue their parochial interests.

Stephen Sarkozy Chuma
MDC Alliance Youth Assembly National Spokesperson