Tatenda Moses MANDONDO
Zimbabwe National Student Union

picture: Created with AI

Fellow brothers and sisters of Zimbabwe,

We are here at this very moment not as bystanders, not just as victims but as a people betrayed. Betrayed by a system drenched in corruption, and inebriated on its own deceit, that it has successfully destroyed our future and poisoned our dignity.

Ever since the fallacy of Independence of 1980, our country has been held hostage by a cabal of looters masquerading as leaders. They have worn our national colours while pocketing foreign currency and auctioning off our country to the highest bidder. They have waved the flag in public, and behind closed doors they have systematically decimated the future of posterity and have successfully sliced the National cake amongst their chosen few or Zvigananda to be direct.

Land reform was hijacked not to empower the landless, but to enrich the connected. The soil, once tilled by our ancestors and fought for by determined Zimbabweans has been now taken by a select few with connections to the top. Farms became symbols of greed, not freedom. The so called Second Republic was supposed to guarantee the fundamental respect of the fight against colonial injustice but alas it became a modern face of oppression.

Hyperinflation has turned our savings to dust and air. Our children are starving while ministers dine in luxury hotels and sponsor their orgy fuelled lifestyles . They fly fin private
jets while hospitals lack painkillers and basic human decency. And yet nothing has happened to correct such anomalies . No one is being held accountable yet the glaring evidence of such corrupt deeds is ever more evident to the world to see but there are some citizens who are more equal than others.

From siphoning of national minerals to fuel cartels, from incompetence to tender scams, the same names keep appearing. The same bloodsuckers feeding off the state. Trillions stolen
yet no one jailed. Trillions stolen, yet the poor are blamed for being poor, our basic crime is that we are seen as a stumbling block to their perpetual looting as citizens.

The year is now 2025 and we have institutions such as anti-corruption commissions with no teeth. We have politicians preaching transparency while building mansions in places they condemned colonial preferences. The elites are now parasites, vampires feeding off the vulnerable to quench their unquenchable desires that have no limits.

They say patience is a virtue but we are tired of being told to be patient while time flies away, We are tired of being preached to about re engaments that only benefits a few individuals whilst the mass suffers . We are tired of a justice system that jails the hungry but protects the corrupt. We will not be silenced by slogans. We will not be pacified by lies. The choice we have is nothing but to begin resisting foul attempts to gaslight the youth of this country into believing that characters like Wicknell Chivhayo amassed such wealth through sweat. It is known for a fact that Wicknell’s company Intratrek received 5 million USD back in 2016
for a 100MW solar project in Gwanda and no progress. It is a fact that his close association with ZANU-PF has been his stepping stone through facilitation of questionable tender processes that can only point to state capture and systemic corruption.

It is a fact that Chivhayo makes a mockery of Accountability by mocking Zimbabweans who question his wealth or demand accountability, for long he has been disrespectful to Zim-
babwean citizens, enough is enough.