ROBERT MUGABE OF THEN RHODESIA AND NOW ZIMBABWE; WHO LIVED A HERO AND DIED A VILLAIN

Robert Mugabe

Many people have called me on my opinion about the death of our own Robert Mugabe. For them, it was strange to experience the silence that sounded from me. Their views are that I am and have been a supporter of the black struggles and especially the African identity, liberation and self leadership.

There is no doubt about that. I nevertheless refrained from any comment because of the respect for the dead. Even this is African and in tandem with my creed and love for Africa. However, as we die, which is an ineluctable end of all mortals, our legacies are weighed on scales especially those set by us while we lived. Whatever weight gained in that process speaks of us as either great or little, worthy or unworthy, praiseworthy or blame worthy, noble or otherwise.

The singsong is that President Robert Mugabe was an African leader. He started his pursuit of an African liberation especially in the then Rhodesia and now Zimbabwe with a confrontational approach against the acclaimed exploiter which gained him some fame. Yes, he won! He also lost as is usual in all wars; you win some and you lose some. He gained fame across the world and indeed was a great leader.

I have hitherto had issues with President Robert Mugabe's stance on permanence in leadership. This waned his fame from where I belong. He became no difference from both the colonialists and the African neocolonialists. This is normal and commonplace with us, be that as it may. Though I received this bad habit of sit tight with mixed feelings because I abhor it, I could live with it as something that has been with us. At least, he is no difference from his folks.

On his death, President Robert Mugabe is supposed to receive accolades from my little and humble self for at least standing out and doing so for his people and the entire black race. At least for his belief in Africa that we should be free from the subjugation of the imperialist. He indeed should have got my praises.

On hearing of his death, however, I rose my pen to scribble his elegy and to wail a dirge and let my pen spill tears on the papers. My writing equipment was already condemned to bleed itself to death by dripping all its life in sounding the praises of dear Robert Mugabe. Horribly, I got the sad and devastating news of where he died. President Robert Mugabe died in a foreign land.

Despite failing to get into Africa what he sought after in the foreign land, in spite of his inability to get Zimbabwe come to speed with the developments in science of all things and especially the health sector, Robert Mugabe didn't conquer the fear of death and so he dropped my pen. It would have been most honourable and exceedingly hallowed if Robert Mugabe died in the hands of African nay Zimbabwean medics. It would have shown him as a believer of his own struggles. It would have made him safe in death to have died amidst brothers and friends. But Robert Mugabe died in the hands and at the feet of his enemies - those he fought while he lived.

It is for this reason that I will not celebrate Robert Mugabe at death. I feel some sense of deceit and defeat with dear President Robert Mugabe.

God, let me die in and on my belief. Give me the strength of character to live upright even unto death. And never let me die in the hands of my enemies.

Goodnight Robert Mugabe, you lived a hero but died a villain.


I am,
KEMKA S. IBEJI