My Dear People
I want to start this epistle by paying tribute to the University of Zimbabwe lecturers, who continue to risk it all to expose the rot at the country’s oldest institution of higher learning, including Friday’s graduation ceremony where thousands were given degrees that they did not deserve.
The lecturers, who have been on strike since April this year protesting against measly salaries of less than US$300 a month, tried to stop the graduation at the last minute but were thwarted by the courts.
Even though they tried to drag my good name into the case by claiming that the latest scandal made the conferment of a PHD degree on me child’s play, the evidence they put before the High Court was compelling.
The UZ has gone to the dogs under the Lacoste administration and we all saw it coming.
For instance, it was revealed that the Council of Social Workers was already investigating allegations that some post graduate students were awarded certificates without attending any lectures or writing final examinations.
The Council told its stakeholders that the investigations “will inform decisive action to ensure full compliance with the standards and ethics governing the social work profession in Zimbabwe in order to uphold the integrity of the profession.”
What this means is that the recent graduates are facing the prospect of having certificates they cannot use anywhere after paying thousands of dollars and toiling for several months believing they were advancing their education.
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Munopengaaaaaaaaa
Then we have the catastrophe of half backed lawyers that have been unleashed into an industry that was already facing a credibility crisis.
Over the years, we have seen many politicians especially from the ruining party rushing to obtain law degrees from the UZ through adult education and I may not be wrong that this has a correlation with the worsening corruption in our judicial system.
We know that most of our politicians are motivated by the politics of the stomach and many see the UZ law qualifications as an easy pass to earning ill-gotten riches.
You all saw the extent they can go to get that qualification last year when Dexter Nduna gate-crashed the graduation ceremony despite having failed his examinations. I hope Nduna eventually got the degree he yearned for so much amidst the chaos.
Back to the raging scandal, the lecturers revealed that despite not attending lectures in their last semester because of the ongoing strike, graduates from the law faculty scored a record number of distinctions.
They said in the international, economic and investment module, 60% of the students scored distinctions after being taught for “two weeks by an inexperienced lecturer.”
“In the student and life skills law, students had a single lecturer, yet 233 students got distinctions. Both these are abnormal and unprecedented results,” the lecturers said in one of the documents submitted in court as evidence.
There was also correspondence from the Zimbabwe National Students Union that showed that final year social work students were asked to sit for a French examination despite that they never attended classes for the module!
The fact that Ngwena was happy to preside over the graduation ceremony speaks volumes of his administration’s culpability in the collapse of what was once a prestigious university.
Munopengaaaaa
Still on Ngwena and degrees, his attempts to re-write history through an interview on DeadBC where he claimed that Gushungo was in the habit of failing his examinations while at prison was pure propaganda.
It is a known fact that Gushungo was an unparalleled intellectual, who was respected throughout the world.
Throughout his long rule, Baba did not even at once try to convince people that he was learned.
He let his public speaking do the talking. Yet this one is still trying to prove his educational credentials eight years after that cowardly coup.
Munopengaaaaaa
Daniel Garwe has become a lone voice in pushing for the 2030 nonsense.
Ngwena has done well to distance himself from the campaign to extend his term beyond 2028, which has largely failed to gain traction because of the strident opposition by the Generari and the securocrats.
We know that those still pushing for the agenda are being motivated by money.
Word reaching me is that one senior official in the ruining party recently got a gift of a house in one of Harare’s leafy suburbs and an expensive car from a very prominent chigananda.
The indecent gift was part of a futile effort to sway the succession issue in favour of the faction that believes money can buy them anything.
Once again I want to warn people that it will end in tears. I am giving counsel as someone who was in the thick of things during Gushungo’s tumultuous succession.
If you thought the annihilation of the so-called G40 was dramatic then you need to watch closely and see what will happen to the zviganandas.
The writing is one the wall.
Munopengaaaaaaaa
Stop It!e
Dr Amai Stop it! PhD (Fake)
