FORMER Zanu PF activist Acie Lumumba says there is no hope in the ruling party, urging youths to find another political home that will steer their cause for real empowerment.
First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe
Lumumba, who is on the verge of launching his own political party this week called Viva Zimbabwe which is going to focus on youth upliftment, said First Lady Grace Mugabe was now effectively in charge of government with Cabinet ministers, including Vice-Presidents, now reporting to her.
He said Zanu PF was so drenched in corruption to the extent that it had become a norm for the top leadership to line their pockets at the expense of the whole citizenry.
“Of the current political parties, none speak directly to the voice or aspirations of my generation. We are faced with a generational divide between old ideas and new thoughts, between Rhodesian wounds and democratic messaging that speak to a generation largely divided by who was active and who was not active pre-independence,” Lumumba said.
The former Zanu PF Harare secretary for tourism said corruption had destroyed any hope of a fruitful Zimbabwe adding the vice had reached alarming where only brave young people would take it head-on.
“People don’t understand the level of corruption in this country. Corruption is like a drug, once you take it for the first time, you don’t know that you are in it. It overtakes and consumes you and you literally lose human compassion and no longer care about human beings,” he said, adding he was also once deep in the vice before realising how he was going down the drain.
Lumumba said Zanu PF had embraced corruption to the extent that most leaders in the party were being rewarded by being appointed to the most senior positions.
The former Zanu PF apologist also took a dig at Grace, saying she was becoming more powerful than her husband President Robert Mugabe, a situation he said was ruinous.
He said this was a sign that there was no hope to talk about in the present generation of leaders.
“Ministers are being told what to do by the First Lady. What do you call that? It’s total madness,” he said while equating her to a “heartless” stepmother.
“You have the First Lady having more rallies than her husband. When she gets up at the rallies and says they are trying to keep me silent, but I will not keep quiet. When we try to speak, it’s not allowed, we are just supposed to listen to her. Again that is total madness. This just shows you the foolishness happening in Zanu PF,” he said. Lumumba has threatened to expose Zanu PF and government officials, particularly his former bosom buddy and Indigenisation minister Patrick Zhuwao, who fired him from chairing a youth body.
