WHEREVER you are after losing big, I am pretty sure you will read this piece offered pro bono as a counsel to like-minded first ladies. I know, you know.
Your hubby Bob turned Zimbabwe into his private estate for many years supported by the army.
Again, as days went by, his magic wand waned. Things became worse after you manipulated him and staged a bedroom coup by greedily and blindly plotting his fall. You took advantage of his senescence without knowing that things had drastically changed.
Yours was power, power only. Thanks to your greed, myopia, and ignorance, you only saw one side of the coin. Power deceptively clambered onto your puny pâté that you would turn Zimbabwe into Graceland or Greedland after taking over from a departed Bob. What a fatal and sacrilegious mistake!
Thanks to your ignorance and greed, you misjudged power dynamics, especially the centrality of the military and war veterans.
You naively forgot that the power yum-yum you were enjoying was the product of the blood and sweat of someone above. Instead of averting power hunger, you myopically thought power was like a sybaritic game you used to play in bed.
Power is so sophisticated, especially for a person of your calibre with only infinitesimal and pitiable knowhow.
Now, your husband is no more and the game is long gone and up. What of you, who is almost half his age? What are you into and up to currently?
Guess what? You have a crucial role to play in the historicity of Zimbabwe? Upshot? Help us to discourage those planning to replicate your tricks to launch bedroom coups. Did you know? I can assure you, my sister. Though Bob’s and your power is a bygone now, he was not the first to be helped to take a rest. It once happened in Tunisia.
Habib Bourguiba was relieved of power to free him from power brokers who had, like yourself, hijacked him in 1987. He was then almost 10 years younger than your husband. Importantly, I know. Your husband survived many big waves to end up being brought down by an illiterate lady simply because he shared the bed with you!
Disgraced, sorry, Grace, forgive me.
You were fully involved in bedroom politics. To show who truly you were, Zimbabwe and the world in general jubilated when the Zimbabwe Armed Forces averted the country the shame you enacted, although it created another.
It made no sense for Delilah to sit on the highest sit of power in the land simply because she dreamt about being President, not to mention using her body to do so. Essentially, this must be a lesson to other myopic dictators whose wives are operating them like puppeteers.
Disgraced, sorry, Grace, you violated Robert and Zimbabwe. Can you say mea culpa, mea culpa and apologise? You brought shame to African women who are renowned for being patient and supportive to their husbands. Your greed and myopia are now eating you up. If I were you, I could have spent much time either upgrading your education or helping poor women in the land? Instead, you spent much time and money on power-hunting to end up being haunted by power not to mention being hunted like an antelope: Believe ye my sister. Zimbabwe will never let you go scot-free. I would badly want you to be brought to book for the sacrilege you committed. I would like to see you in the same position former Ivorian first lady Simone Gbagbo once was in after misleading her husband the same way you besmirched Bob.
Disgraced, sorry, Grace did you know, God is nowadays faster in repaying than before? The sages say whatever you do, payments or rewards are here on earth. Absolutely, absolute power corrupts absolutely the sages have it. After being married to Bob — after betraying and divorcing your hubby — you forgot your humble past. You self-appointed a power behind the throne. Had you been educated, maybe, you would have studied or remembered the history of Simone Gbagbo if not that of Elena Ceausescu nee Lenuta Petrescu former Romania first lady who bungled and corrupted her husband so as to start off a tragedy that saw them deposed and summarily killed.
That the fall of your husband was mainly associated with your power lust, I am pretty sure.
In post-Bob era, Zimbabweans are likely to forgive him for his other sins, especially if they remember how he fought for and brought independence to Zimbabwe and bungled it because of you. As for you, I do not know if they will stomach forgiveness provided that many flaws you committed resulted from evil intention of grabbing power and keeping on abuse and misusing it at their detriment.
Finally, Disgraced, Greedy, sorry, Grace, brace yourself to answer for millions of bucks you robbed and squandered at the time Zimbabweans were dying of hunger, preventable and curable diseases.
Wait Grace, wait!
Never stop to wait.
Wait for justice to be served.
Yep, wait for the reward.
Yep, reward for your greed.
What a lesson!
My words and works will live longer, spread wider, speak louder and be more valued than their creator who happens to be me. They will speak when I won’t have power and time to speak. They will speak even in my absence.
- Mhango is a lifetime member of the Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador, an expert on terrorism and author of over 20 books among them Africa Reunite or Perish, 'Is It Global War on Terrorism' or Global War over Terra Africana? and How Africa Developed Europe.