Everything now seemed on course for Mugabe but
George Bush won the 2004 presidential elections which meant that Mugabe’s term
of office expired before that of Bush. Howard also won the elections to serve
his fourth term as Australian Prime Minister but his term expired before that
of Mugabe.
"Bush might outlast Mugabe," I thought.
"But the prophecy was still true about Blair."
But Blair won his third term in May 2005 which meant
he would be in power a year or two after Mugabe’s term of office had expired.
I began to lose heart. Despite Mugabe's victory
things continued to fall apart. Inflation started to soar. Central bank
governor Gideon Gono who had come on with a lot of promise vowing "failure
is not an option" slowly disappeared from the public arena sparking
rumours that he too was giving up.
But Mugabe would not go. With its two-thirds
majority, Mugabe’s party voted to re-introduce the Senate which was abolished
when the post of executive president was created. Its argument was that this would bring more
democracy as the upper house would scrutinise the legislation passed by the
lower house. Critics said Mugabe was just trying to accommodate his cronies
some of whom had been clobbered in the parliamentary elections both in 2000 and
2005.
The opposition was split over whether it should
participate in the elections for a new senate or not. Party leader Morgan
Tsvangirai over-ruled his executive which had voted to participate and said the
party would boycott the elections. His secretary-general Welshman Ncube said
Tsvangirai could not overrule the majority because this was tantamount to being
a dictator. The party was, therefore, going to contest the elections. The two
sides could not agree and the party split. Those behind Ncube contested the
senate elections. Efforts to heal the rift flopped. The party officially split
in February 2006 when the two factions held their congresses but both clang on
to the name MDC.
Former student leader Arthur Mutambara was elected
president of the pro-senate faction after the party leadership, Ncube and Gibson
Sibanda, both Ndebele, decided that the party needed a Shona leader with
national appeal. Mutambara had been a vociferous student leader in the late
1980s. He had studied in Britain obtaining a PhD in robotics and mechatronics before
moving to the United States where he worked as a consultant at McKinsey and
Company and for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA). He was now a businessman in South Africa where he ran the African
Technology and Business Institute.
Mugabe had survived another crisis. But divisions
within ZANU-PF continued to grow. The divisions came to a head at the party’s
annual conference in December 2006 at Goromonzi in Mashonaland East, the home
province of Solomon Mujuru, husband of the country’s vice-president. Mujuru,
who had become one of the country’s wealthiest businessmen, was now fed up with
Mugabe because his continued stay in power was hurting his business interests.
He and his wife were on the United States and European Union sanctions lists
and this prohibited him from travelling to Europe or the United States or doing
business there.
At the conference Mugabe and his other lieutenants
tried to buy time by advocating for harmonised elections. At the time, Zimbabwe
had separate parliamentary, presidential and local government elections. Their
argument was that this was a stretch on the country’s meagre resources and on
the voters themselves because they were in perpetual election mode.
For example, between 2000 and 2005 the country had five
national elections. There were parliamentary elections in 2000, local
government elections in 2001, presidential elections in 2002, parliamentary
elections in 2005 and senate elections in 2005. Mugabe and his lieutenants
therefore wanted to push the presidential elections of 2008 to 2010 when the
next parliamentary elections were due so that the country could hold all three
elections- presidential, parliamentary, and local government- at the same time.
Mujuru and Mashonaland East province rejected the
idea. They also refused to endorse Mugabe as the party’s next presidential
candidate. Instead, they called for an extra-ordinary congress of the party for
the following year. The next ordinary congress was due in 2009. Battle lines
had been drawn and for the first time, there had was open confrontation about
Mugabe’s continued leadership of the party.
Mujuru’s open confrontation with Mugabe provided an
opportunity for Emmerson Mnangagwa, who had been demoted to Minister of Rural
Housing after the 2005 elections, to bounce back. His opportunity came at the
party’s central committee meeting on March 30, 2007. Mugabe was under siege at
the time.
Police had beaten up and arrested most of the leaders of the
opposition including Mutambara and Tsvangirai. Sekai Holland, a Zimbabwean
married to an Australian, made international headlines after she was beaten and
arrested. Gift Tandare, an MDC activist,
was shot and killed by the police but could not be buried because most of the
leaders of the opposition were in jail. This provided good reason for Mujuru to
challenge Mugabe to step down but he was not given a chance by Mnangagwa and
his lieutenants.
According to a cable dispatched by United States
ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, who Mugabe and his government said
had been deployed to Zimbabwe to kick him out as he had done in Kosovo where he
was chief of mission, Mugabe steamrolled his way into becoming the ZANU-PF
candidate for the 2008 presidential
elections. There was no discussion. No debate.
Dell said his sources told him that Justice Minister
Patrick Chinamasa, a close ally of Mnangagwa, introduced, at the
beginning of the meeting, a proposal for consolidated presidential and parliamentary
elections in 2008. “At that point, Central Committee members, led by the
Women's League and Youth League, began chanting and singing for Mugabe to be
the presidential candidate. There was no discussion, no tabling of a motion,
nor was there a formal vote. The party spokesperson announced after the meeting
that the Central Committee had selected Mugabe as its standard bearer”. And
that was that. Mujuru was not given a chance.
Two
months later there was a bomb shell. British Prime Minister Tony Blair
announced on May 10 that he was stepping down on June 27. I could not believe
it. Part
one of the prophecy had been fulfilled. But events in Zimbabwe were so unpredictable
that though only seven weeks away, June 27 looked years away.
Anything could
happen. Mugabe could be off the scene before then.
I
drafted my story on May 12 planning to have it out before May 19, more than a
month before Blair officially stepped down. But I abandoned the project when
more predictions about Mugabe's downfall began to spread. My doubts and lack of
faith had taken over. I felt Mugabe might not last until June 27 so I decided
to work on the story but hold it until a day after Blair had actually resigned.
I wrote the story and asked one of the church elders
whether I could sell the story as it was. He said I should get the bishop’s
opinion on the story. I did not like the idea, but I did. Bishop Mutendi said
he wanted to see the story to read it for himself. After going through it he
advised me not to publish it.
"There is nothing wrong with the story or the
prophecy," he told me. "My only worry is that the MDC might not
understand that this is prophecy and not the church's position. Why don't you
wait because part of the prophecy is still to be fulfilled?"
I was devastated. Four years had been a long wait. I
had put everything into this story. My first instinct was to defy the bishop
because I felt that this was going to be an opportunity missed because the
story might be overtaken by events. But I could not defy my bishop.
Bishop Mutendi instructed me to rewrite the story
confining myself to the prophecy linked to the development of our multi-million
dollar church that we were building at the church's administrative headquarters
at Mbungo Estates, in Masvingo.
Construction of the church which has a capacity of
15 000 to 18 000 had started in October 2005. Though it had initially been
thought that the church would be completed within a year, it was still far from
complete.
There had been several prophecies about what would happen to Zimbabwe
and its people when construction of the church was completed. One of the prophecies was that Zimbabwe was
going to regain its status as the region's bread basket. Another was that
Zimbabwe’s currency was going to regain its strength and compete against the
South African rand, the Botswana pula and the United States dollar. And,
finally, a cure for Aids would be found.
I wrote that story and it appeared in our supplement
which is published every year in July to coincide with the anniversary of Rev
Samuel Mutendi's death. The story read:
Thousands of followers of the Zion Christian Church will trek to
Defe Dopota this week on their annual pilgrimage in honour of the founder Rev
Samuel Mutendi. This year’s pilgrimage will, however, be different. They will
not be mourning the founder. They did that for 30 years. Now it’s their turn to
be rewarded for their perseverance and steadfastness.
Church members will this year be rededicating
themselves to Rev. Mutendi who guided the church from its humble beginnings in
the 1920s until his death on 20 July 1976.
Rev Mutendi received his calling in 1913 while he was serving as a
police officer in Chegutu. He was baptised in South Africa where he founded the
Zion Christian Church in 1924 together with Engenas Lekganyana before returning
to Zimbabwe to launch his evangelical crusade.
He,
however, faced stiff resistance from colonial governments because they thought
he had a political agenda yet his aim was to liberate his people spiritually
and intellectually because he knew, as the bible says, that his people would
perish because of lack of knowledge. (Hosea 4 vs 6).
Throughout
his teachings, he also wanted to eradicate two ills: disease and poverty. To
achieve this he encouraged his people to educate their children and established
the first school in 1932. This was unheard of at the time and from then
Rev.Mutendi became a marked man who was jailed constantly, sometimes for
frivolous reasons, because of his unwavering conviction that he was doing the
right thing for his people.
He established his first mission at
Mutarara, then known as Zion City Moriah, some three kilometres from Nyika
Growth Point. This was to remain his headquarters until he was moved to Gokwe
in the late1960s.
God also endowed him and some of his
followers with powers of healing. Using holy water he was able to cure various
ailments some of which were thought to have no cure including infertility. A
French couple that had been childless for years travelled all the way to Moriah
and was blessed with a baby girl.
Though he performed various miracles
and preached the word of God for five decades, it was his end that attracted
the attention of even those that had been sitting on the fence. It proved
beyond doubt that Rev Mutendi was indeed a Man of God, Muranda waMwari.
A few days before his death, Rev.
Mutendi told his church elders that his time was up. “I have fought the good
fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Henceforth, there is
laid for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge,
will award me on that day, and not only to me but also to those who have loved
his appearing,” he quoted from the Bible (2 Tim 4 vs 7).
He said if nothing unique happened
three days after his death, then his followers could go back to their old ways
of drinking beer and worshipping their ancestors because he had misled them all
along.
Three days after his death, a bright star
which bore his picture complete with his cap and staff popularly known as mapumhangozi
was seen gliding slowly across the sky before landing on the ground to mark his
grave. Several people, including some who were not even members of his church,
were seized by the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues at the sight of the star.
The star was seen across the country
but scientists explained it away as an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO). To his
followers, this was confirmation that Rev. Mutendi was indeed a Man of God.
Rev Mutendi was succeeded by his son, Nehemiah, who has taken the church
to even greater heights. It now has congregations in Botswana, Lesotho,
Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia as well as in Britain and the United
States.
Bishop Mutendi, who trained as a teacher, has kept his father’s vision
of educating the people. The church now has four primary and six secondary
schools and is sponsoring scores of students at various universities in the
country.
His aim is to spread the gospel across
the globe to show how God has manifested himself in Africa. But more
importantly, he wants to see his followers prosper through the eradication of
disease and poverty.
The visit to the Holy Shrine at Defe
this year will mark the first step towards achieving that goal. “After 30 years
of morning Bambo Samere,” he says, “it is now time for us to receive our thank
you letters.”
He has also embarked on the
construction of a mammoth church and conference centre at the church
headquarters at Mbungo Estates, about 50km east of Masvingo. The church will be
one of the biggest on the continent.
Once it is completed everyone who will
have contributed to the construction of this church should be rewarded as
proclaimed in 1 Kings 4 vs 25: “And Judah and David dwelt in safety, from Dan
even to Beer-Sheba, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, all the
days of Solomon..”
This is further confirmed in 11
Chronicles 31 vs 10, which says: “And Azariah the chief
priest of the house of Zadok answered him, and said, Since the people began to
bring the offerings into the house of the Lord, we have had enough to eat, and
have left plenty: for the Lord hath blessed his people; and that which is left
is this great store.”
Already, there have been several
prophesies associated with the completion of this church that will cost more
than US$1 million. One is that a cure
for the dreaded Aids disease will be found. The other is that Zimbabwe will
regain its status as the region’s breadbasket and its currency will regain its
value.
This is the fifth chapter of my kindle book: When religious beliefs clash with
journalism principles,which is available only through Amazon. The book is
not about the church or about Mugabe but about my experiences in the Zion
Christian Church. If, in the process, this helps to spread the word about
the ZCC then I would have done my part because the church and its leader Bishop
Mutendi are not only preaching the Word of God in Zimbabwe and across the World
but they are also promoting the development of Zimbabwe, which former Tanzanian
President Julius Nyerere said was the Jewel of Africa. As it is said in Isaiah
2 vs 2 "that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the
top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations
shall flow unto it" so will the ZCC and Zimbabwe. For my fellow
Zimbabweans who have no means of buying this book online, I will be serialising
it on this blog, bit by bit. So follow this blog.