It’s a new day in Zimbabwe!

Nothing beats personal experience. I had heard and read so much about Zimbabwe and its former Lord of the Manor, Robert Mugabe, who had made the place so famous or notorious (depending on your perspective) that I couldn’t wait to see things for myself. In a way, it was going to be a kind of […]

Nothing beats personal experience. I had heard and read so much about Zimbabwe and its former Lord of the Manor, Robert Mugabe, who had made the place so famous or notorious (depending on your perspective) that I couldn’t wait to see things for myself.

In a way, it was going to be a kind of homecoming for this stranger whose only affinity with the country was membership of the pro-liberation movement of the 70s in Nigeria where everyone was a member of the liberation struggle then ongoing in southern Africa. As undergraduates, we were all Zimbabweans, South Africans, Namibians, Mozambicans Angolans, etc. 

We were fed a diet of African brotherhood and fervently believed that Africa was in chains until every inch of the continent was liberated from the inhumanity of apartheid. I’m still looking forward to meeting Thabo Mbeki someday to reminisce on his days as ANC rep in Obalende, Lagos, where he handed out propaganda materials to student movements.

Touching ground in free Zimbabwe brought it all together. This was the place that packed so much history, that thrilled our young minds with many stories of heroism, that unwittingly fired our minds with limitless possibilities.

Now that Zimbabwe was undergoing a rebirth of sorts, having successfully saved former President Robert Mugabe from himself, it would be interesting to see what the mood in the country was like. Have things changed? Are the people hopeful? Or are they resigned to another season of underachievement?

The Harare I saw was a personable lady who apparently had once been a beauty queen, but with some sprucing up would certainly still turn heads; she already has all the alluring curves in the right places. Zimbabwe is nobody’s ‘shit-hole’. It is a vibrant country whose people have been put through untold deprivation in times past and recent. However, there is a palpable air of hope in the air. Wherever you turn, there are great expectations. 

The people have great hopes in President Mnangagwa and his party, the ZANU PF, just like the massive expectations that heralded the presidency of Muhammadu Buhari in Nigeria. The people want a break from the past. They want a responsive government that would carry all Zimbabweans along to the land of prosperity. 

The ordinary Zimbabwean is politically sophisticated, if you are patient enough to hear him out. A taxi driver narrated how much he has struggled in the last 25 years to make ends meet. In spite of all odds, he has managed to see his daughter through secondary school and she is now in the university. His other children are queuing up for their turn. His prayer is that he is strong enough to witness the graduation of all his children. “If I can achieve just that, I will go to my grave in peace”, he said. 

Another person, an art dealer, felt that the people’s expectation of the new order were too high and that the promise of the opposition party to do better than the ZANU PF was sheer opportunism. “Look, yes, Mugabe was an albatross hanging on all our necks. Now that he is out of the picture, we should start reaching out and rebuilding. The opposition guys are building castles in the air. They are promising the moon when they haven’t even understood a little corner of the earth. I am 64 years old. It’s too late for any small boy to hoodwink me. But take it from me, this country will be great, and it won’t be long anymore”.

How is the new government trying to achieve the installation of a new order? The word about town is that Mugabe has not been idle in retirement and has been busy encouraging some elements digging trenches under the new government. If that allegation against the 93-year-old man is true, then in spite of his commendable academic attainments, he has failed to benefit from Lord Tennyson’s admonition: “The old order changeth, yielding place to the new, and God fulfils Himself in many ways, lest one good custom should corrupt the world…”

One lady regaled me with stories of how Grace Mugabe constituted herself and a tiny cabal into a government-in-waiting. But she says all is well and all past sins are forgiven as long as the ambitious spouse of the former president behaves herself.

A visit to downtown Harare, especially the market areas, revealed the sad spectacle of street urchins living off drugs. During the day, they look peaceful, even as they appear dazed. But just as happens in Nigeria’s commercial cities of Lagos and Kano, don’t take them for granted at night. I took special precaution not to take chances with them.

Would I recommend Zimbabwe to anyone looking for a great place to invest? Without hesitation, I will. The country is reinventing itself now that it has in its saddle a man who is accomplished in the business world and has been vice-president; a man who hasn’t lost touch with the people as he has been part of the struggle from the early beginnings. He now has a chance to lead them to attain their full potentials.

I have a feeling that the prospects of this piece of earth called Zimbabwe are  a closely guarded secret. If things are handled right, Zimbabwe will soon be on its way to reclaim what it had lost in years past. Yes, it’s a new day in Zimbabwe!