Mahoka and the politics of idolatry

Obituaries
As you read this piece, Sarah Mahoka, that once fearsome whirlwind from Hurungwe East, may be licking fatal political wounds — injuries that might easily sound the death knell to her dramatic and often perilously adventurous political career.

As you read this piece, Sarah Mahoka, that once fearsome whirlwind from Hurungwe East, may be licking fatal political wounds — injuries that might easily sound the death knell to her dramatic and often perilously adventurous political career.

the oracle BY TANGAI CHIPANGURA

Martin Dinha kneeling before Grace Mugabe
Martin Dinha kneeling before Grace Mugabe

The scars have been inflicted by the very persons for whom she earned herself notoriety as Zanu PF’s formidable and revered mother-terror. She is walking the same road to the Zanu PF cemetery that others before her have plodded. Joice Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa, Rugare Gumbo, Dzikamai Mavhaire, Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, Tracy Mutinhiri and Miriam Chombo quickly come to mind among scores that have been thrown out of the Zanu PF gravy train regardless of how clean they licked boots.

Poor Mahoka does not appear to know that there are no permanent friends in politics. You may sing your voice hoarse in praise, stick your neck out in support, or worship leaders to a point of calling them brothers to the moon and cousins to the sun — but the same people will turn around and, without blinking an eye, sign your political death warrant when they are done using you.

It would be helpful to remind Mahoka of that incident in December 2004 when Faber Chidarikire, the Provincial Minister for Mashonaland West, introduced VP Emmerson Mnangagwa’s wife Auxilia as acting first lady at a Zanu PF celebration party in Chinhoyi soon after Mnangagwa had been appointed VP.

It all started with the excitable, yet not so intellectually given provincial minister, Chidarikire taking his apple-polishing act on Mnangagwa a bit too far. He sought to lift the unworldly profile of the VP’s wife to that of Zimbabwe’s “untouchable Dr. Amai Grace Mugabe” by referring to Auxilia as “the acting first lady”.

Not that, in my view, there was much harm in that Faber overkill, given that Auxilia’s husband was indeed, at the material time, the acting president of Zimbabwe.

It goes without saying, however, that such “territorial invasion” would infuriate Grace “big time”, to use the first lady’s own lingo. So, soon as he realised his adulation was likely to offend the “queen”, a clearly terrified Chidarikire quickly swallowed back his words, pleading that he was “just joking” in his own moment of madness.

But Mahoka would have none of that. The self-confessed Grade 2 dropout, whose academic barrenness explains the poverty of her judgement, decided the attempt to equate Auxilia, a mere mortal, to Grace, was a repugnant act of treachery!

“No woman can be equated to our only anointed Amai Mugabe,” Mahoka fumed. “She is an angel sent to this country to liberate all women and men. She is anointed by the spirit of Ambuya Nehanda!”

She demanded an immediate apology from Chidarikire who is her boss by every meaning of the word. Mahoka, the academic midget who not so long back was also a political nobody, was all of a sudden moving mountains. She had perfected the art of bootlicking.

A few years down the line and still steeped in the heat of reckless bootlicking, Mahoka was at it again, attacking VP Mnangagwa himself, pointing her finger and calling him a lame duck in full view of the whole nation. She went further to drench George Charamba in verbal vomit while even demanding an explanation from the president himself on the conduct of his spokesperson during a radio interview.

The charged Mahoka, determined to bootlick herself up the political apple tree, was totally blind to the gravity of her folly. The louder the public cheers, the deeper her small mind sank her into depravity. Eventualities of such realities as she stares today did not occur to her at all.

Bootlicking has become a disease in African politics; an affliction whose poison knows no boundary and makes little minds blind to danger. Mahoka’s was not the epitome of bootlicking. We had Webster Shamu of the “Cremora fame”, Tony Gara and his “Son of God gaffe” and many others whose spectacular physical grovelling provided pictorial cannon fodder for critics.

That unforgettable photo of Martin Dinha, Mashonaland Central Provincial minister in his bright lime safari suit kneeling prayerfully before the first lady is in tough competition with the one of big Ignatius Chombo in the same subservient act.

Lately, we have also seen the Fisheries minister of Zambia kneeling on both legs while giving a briefing to President Lungu while from Malawi and Uganda we have been treated to a similarly humiliating spectacle where ministers sit on the floor or kneel prayerfully while conversing with their presidents.

This is the hopeless extent to which politicians have sunken. Hard work and merit no longer count because praise-singing and patronage is all that matters.

But, this attempt at making our leaders little gods is an adventure that should make us very afraid. We stand in danger of transforming otherwise good leaders into irredeemable despots who are deaf to advice and resistant to common wisdom.

We fail to understand that the hyperbolic praises that we shower our leaders with will make them believe they are indeed demi-gods and indefatigable holy cows — not fallible humans who must be answerable to the people that voted them into power!

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