How Robert Mugabe cooked his goose

Sir: Power corrupts, no doubt. Only a handful manage not to be despoiled by the frills of power. Success is hard to manage. You only need to have a friend appointed to governmental office to feel the import. Nelson Mandela, Thomas Sankara have to be among those who weren’t corrupted by power and managed success very well. Three reasons were responsible for Mugabe’s downfall.

He couldn’t manage the army, lost grip of same and was insensitive to their needs. A president must not have a strained relationship with the army chief and soldiers. When push comes to shove, a loyal army sticks by a president. The forced resignation down his throat by the army says a lot about his relationship with the army.

Most importantly, he lost the masses. The wild celebrations after Mugabe’s disgraceful resignation showed clearly that his reign was not people friendly. It was clearly a case of over-weighted abandonment of the masses for whom policies should be directed at. And the young men shouted war and got rid of Mugabe.

Lastly, he lost touch with not only key establishment players but the establishment.

He had his goose cooked by overlooking the establishment. The establishment determines who becomes a president and whoever decides to go after the establishment should be ready to be served distasteful meals by the establishment. As we move into the month of December and Christmas he should have remembered Charles Dickens’, ‘A Christmas Carol’ so as to extend hands of fellowship to the establishment players but he did not. Nelson Mandela even negotiated with F. W. de Klerk – without the knowledge of his party the ANC while in prison before his release. It is hoped that the new leaders would pay attention to the major issues that are needed to be addressed for development in Zimbabwe. African leaders are routinely  seen as turds with ears and you wonder if there will ever come a day when they will transit to something positive.
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Simon Abah, Abuja.

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