Verily, verily, Zanu PF—or whatever is left of it—must learn to fear God so that, for a change, it can move away from its crude ways.
You will be shocked how it is treating the so-called volunteers that were recruited by Forever Associates of Zimbabwe (FAZ) ahead of last year’s elections mainly to campaign for President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
I’m dumping the buck on the Zanu PF stoep because FAZ’s surname is Zanu PF. FAZ is an integral part of the ruling party, or the dominant faction therein. Whatever the association does, it’s cooked and served at the Zanu PF headquarters.
And, because of the conflation between Zanu PF and the government, FAZ has been drawing resources from public coffers. We have always been told that bit, and it makes perfect sense.
Close to 6,000 “volunteers” were conscripted to aid the Zanu PF presidential campaign a few months before the 2023 elections. The majority of them are impressionable and jobless young women and men, who couldn’t resist the lofty promises that FAZ was making to them.
While a good number was deployed in urban areas, the majority of them are based in rural areas where livelihood opportunities are as dry as an El Nino season.
It may be easy for some people to say, heh, these FAZ agents deserve whatever Karma is giving them because what were they thinking when they were getting onto this bed of thorns?
But then, that’s something that is said by a person who doesn’t understand how this thing called autonomy works. To blame that way implies that they have autonomy.
A person is autonomous if and only if he or she has enough space and the capacity to make independent decisions, barring the fair and acceptable limitations that make society functional.
Where that person still appears to be making independent decisions but is still tied to a pole by abnormal factors that could otherwise be avoided, there is no autonomy.
Poverty and ignorance are a perfect combo for crude politicians.
They use this deadly combination to suppress, manipulate and abuse people. And that’s the reason why FAZ managed to recruit so many thousands.
They picked on young people who are hungry and so vulnerable to brainwashing.
Ever wondered why you don’t see any political militias in Borrowdale where most of the politicians actually live, but readily so in Mbare, Epworth, Vhengere, Makokoba et cetera? Poverty and ignorance.
Anyway, let’s get back to the real story. You will notice that the FAZ agents are being extensively abused by the association’s leadership and Zanu PF that are literally forcing them to carry out campaigns that they hardly have an idea about.
When you talk to them, you will notice that, disturbingly, they are naively excited that they have been roped in to campaign for Mnangagwa’s Vision 2030. For them, Mnangagwa must remain in office till 2030. Why? Because that’s what their shady leaders have told them.
They belong to Zanu PF-affiliated WhatsApp groups where you just won’t believe the extent to which people are being fed on fake information.
Now, they believe, sorely ignorantly, that Mnangagwa cannot go before 2030 because he has work to do beyond 2028 when he is supposed to go. In that regard, they are being used as pawns in the Zanu PF succession battle.
They don’t even understand what Vision 2030 stands for. And they don’t even know that Zimbabwe has laws that govern such things like terms of office.
But what do you expect from a rural boy or girl barely out of his or her teens, failed his or her O-levels because the schools are so pathetic and can only listen to official news on the radio, outside Whatsapp, if at all there is transmission in the area?
You may not know this, but these youths are being forced to attend each and every gathering that takes place in their respective areas of operation.
Interestingly, they are being deployed mostly to meetings involving party members, regardless of the seniority of the individuals concerned.
In fact, they have been told that they must attend all gatherings where prominent party members are involved. The reason?
They must gather intelligence that they record on their unmistakable tablets that are as big as granite boulder.
This information if passed on to cluster leaders who in turn share it with their other bosses in the mystic hierarchy, all the way to the president himself.
We are living in a phase of acute paranoia due to the hotly contested succession game in Zanu PF. The intelligence that the “volunteers” gather is being used to gauge the mood and sniff out “naughty” contenders.
This won’t surprise you because the president has already boasted that he has eyes and ears everywhere, having been the one who founded CIO way back at independence. And this is another form of abuse because the hapless youths are being made to do work that we have traditionally associated with CIO.
It gets worse when you realise that these FAZ youths are getting nothing for the precarious job they are doing.
They last received wages in August last year, the same month that the elections were held. When they travel to cover the political meetings, the only thing they get is free transport.
There is no money for food or accommodation.
They have to scrounge around on their own to get airtime or data. As for meals, they have to see what they can do when they get back home.
Contrast this with the top FAZ leadership. These dudes grabbed all the four-wheelers that were bought for them, possibly using taxpayers’ money.
Their leader, Kudakwashe Munsaka, is enjoying himself in Canada or some such country.
We are yet to know if any of his relatives is part of this sad pool of youngsters working as FAZ recruits.
Their handlers won’t let them do anything else for a living. They were promised income-generating projects, but that remains a pie in the high sky.
They must remain where they are based till the blur is removed from the 2030 vision, whatever that entails.
They were even barred from joining the notorious youth service that could, albeit distastefully, have given them jobs in the civil service. They are not even allowed to do such other time-consuming like cross-border trade.
To deter them, their leaders are asking them to apply for leave, otherwise they would be deemed to have gone AWOL.
That’s nonsense, of course, considering that these recruits have never been given contracts of employment.
How do you set such stringent conditions for someone who you haven’t formally or procedurally employed?
And the youths will not abscond because they are saddled with fear. They are being severely intimidated by their leaders.
They are living an open barrack life, like soldiers. They are bound by military rules that shouldn’t apply to them. Yet FAZ has the audacity to call them volunteers!
*Tawanda Majoni writes in his personal capacity and can be contacted on majonitt@gmail.com