By Nomazulu Thata

I am breaching my own covenant I made never to critique Thokozani Khuphe in the public taking into consideration the trauma she had to endure at the funeral of Richard Morgen Tsvangirai funeral in Bhuhera I February 2018. I t is not only trauma, Thokozani Khuphe could have lost her life together with Douglas Mwonzorwa and their security details. These are hard and painful times to remember, at best we want to forget and move on.

But politics by its nature will force us to comment on issues in this country: Zimbabwe is dear to all those born in it. I followed the politics of Thokozani Khuphe and her MDC-T a bit closer when the supreme court ruling came out in her favour. Critiques from all corners of party divides appeared to lean on Thokozani as the victim of Chamisa’ tribalism and undemocratic tendencies that are obvious to some of us who come from Matabeleland. Nelson Chamisa outsmarted Thokozani Khuphe, the message was clear, no power to be given to a Ndebele and a female! For a tribalistic, misogynist MDC-Alliance party immersed with unsympathetic men in the higher echelons of power, they did not take it, what, female as head of MFC-T, they had to act. The rest is history.

For Thokozani Khuphe and Khaliphani Phugheni to celebrate the downfall of MDC-Alliance is the height of folly. Thokozani may not be the big brains in town, but Phugheni is a highly intelligent man, eloquently brilliant: it beggar’s belief, his inability to read the messages on the wall that very soon this Zanu regime will be no more. This Zanu government they openly support will be history soon. Zanu PF days as a government are numbered. Mnangagwa will leave the political arena in a painful way because the mood, the pain, the anger in the public domain is great. Can’t they see what is coming? We can feel it 7 thousand miles away from home that there is a bloody revolution coming. It is just a question of time, Zimbabwe will be ungovernable, implode in favour of the citizens. It is the citizens who will bring change in Zimbabwe.

In the event of a violent revolution in Zimbabwe, what will happen to Sis Thokozani? Where will she go? Please readers, allow me to tell you a story like the one I am talking about in this article. In 1989, I was a student in West Berlin when a revolution took place in Germany: The Berlin wall fell. I had lived in East Germany for 5 years and enjoyed the best education. I was trying to get to the University: Technical University of Berlin West Berlin, when I saw scores, masses of German people from the East, they crowded the West Berlin city collapsing the transportation system to a standstill. German peoples were shouting in jubilation: The Berlin wall has fallen. The Berlin wall has fallen! Der Mauer ist gefallen ohne Blutvergießen! The joy, the euphoria, elation, the jubilation mood was tangible!! That was thirty years ago.

To cut the story short because its long dear readers: I abandoned going to the University: on the way to my flat, on foot, I asked myself two questions because I was deeply concerned about the two: Where is Erick Honecker? Where is Margot his wife? The First Secretary Erick Honecker was the President of East Germany back then: he was the last President of the Socialist East Germany. Erick Honecker had visited Zambia in 1979 at the height of race war between Zapu/Zanu and the Rhodesia Front. He visited refugee camps devastated by Smith’s napalm bombings in Zambia. Douglas Smith regime bombed Zapu refugee camps indiscriminately disregarding even camps for civilians and women. Scholarships were given to students who left the camps soon after his Zambia visit. I was one of the recipient of a scholarship to study in East Germany. I was Erick Honecker’s immediate benevolence to ease congestion in civilian camps.

It will not be long, very soon I will find myself asking the same question I did in 1989 when the Berlin wall fell. My concerned questions this time around will be: Where is Thokozani Khuphe: where is Khaliphani Phugheni? Mnangagwa gave Khuphe a shaky and temporal political lifeline and she was not supposed to dwell on it for whatever reason. I would like to believe that the supreme court ruling was a calculated political move to destroy MDC-Alliance: I wonder why Khuphe would be full of it; accept a temporal political move that has no benefit on the general populace except herself and the rank and file of the MDC-T party.

Curiously, Thokozani does not realize if Mnangagwa was removed from power today, violently removed, it can equally harm her adversely. Khuphe and Phugheni are Ndebele people who should never salute Mnangagwa with “Excellency” tag. Khuphe and Phugheni are the Ndebele people who should instead work together with Chamisa and his MDC-Alliance it did not matter how false Chamisa is, Chamisa is better than Mnangagwa by any stretch of our own imagination. Thokozani Khuphe is telling all and sundry that there is no legitimacy issue in Zimbabwe. Really! How does she manage to go against the tide? There are serious legitimacy issues in Zimbabwe ever since the coup in 2017.

Phugheni and Khuphe are Ndebele politicians spitting on the graves and survivors of thousands of Gukurahundi victims: victims of farm invasions, victims of Murambatsvina, victims of 2008 general elections, victims of 2018 elections, victims of abductions and incarcerations of Hopewell Chinono and Gharivhume, victims of MDC-alliance young women Mamombe who were forced to drink urine and eat their faeces. To work so closely with a regime like Zanu PF is to tell all that politics is if her stomach is full! But that is not politics but civil service. I challenge Thoko and Phugheni to tell us which group of people are they are representing?

Thokozani Khuphe and Khaliphani Phugheni are on the wrong side of the pale. If the people did not vote for Khuphe presidency in the last general elections: she got a paltry 49,000 votes, what is she still doing in politics? Did the people, even from Matabeleland, not show her a middle finger in the 2018 general elections? What is going to happen to get Thokozani in power either than assisting a despotic regime: the enemy of Zimbabwe: Zanu PF and Mnangagwa to subjugate the general population further? Please Thoko wake up and smell the coffee. The people are angry out there. The people of Zimbabwe cannot breathe. How long are you going to be part of a failing regime; you are risking your lives going down with a despotic that has blood on its hands since independence.

Ask Jonathan Moyo and Saviour Kasukuwere how they managed to escape death after the coup in 2017: This will happen to you too and it will not be long. You may not be lucky as Jonathan because the people are angry, hungry, robbed of their rights to assemble and effect regime change. To continue to give statements that boosts Zanu PF regime and Mnangagwa is becoming tasteless. Both you and your spokesperson Phugheni come from this region still ravaged by genocide and marginalization. Your reference to Mnangagwa as “your excellency” is the worst insult we can endure. It is high time you told to stop it; it stinks to high heavens.

This very Mnangagwa called your relatives and countrymen and women cockroaches and ticks to be gamatoxed in 1983. Mnangagwa was butchering the people of your region where you come from. Mahatma Gandhi spoke about seven deadly sins: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, science without humanity, knowledge without character, politics without principle, commerce without morality and worship without sacrifice. These seven deadly sins put you both Thokozani Khuphe and Khaliphani Phugheni into scrutiny and your political perspective. The the moral fabric of your immaturity in politics is put on the spotlight and is found wanting. To continue to ask you to examine your conscience is asking too much from you. Remember the people shall take what belong to them one day.

Allow me to finish my story about the First Secretary Erick Honecker and his wife Margot. After the fall of the famous Berlin Wall, Honecker and his wife fled to then Soviet Union for refuge. In the SU the situation was turbulent, Goberchew was transforming SU: Perestroika and Glasnost was the buzzword then. Erich was deported back from the Soviet Union to Germany to face crimes against humanity, was subsequently incarcerated: extremely ill person then suffering from advanced cancer. He was freed on humanitarian grounds, was permitted to join his wife who had fled to Santiago, Chile. Chile managed to give both a decent asylum because Sonja, his Stepdaughter was married to a Chilean husband. He died in Santiago Chile and his ashes were dispersed in Germany according to his wishes.

The moral of this story about the First Secretary Erich Honecker is to warn Sister Thokozani Khuphe that the end of time of despots like Mnangagwa is painful. The temporal glory you are dwelling on with Zanu PF will end faster than you think. You are on the wrong side of the pale. You have no future in a democratic Zimbabwe; the people openly rejected you at the polls in 2018. What politics are you doing if the electorate said no, pointing their middle finger at you?