What a lovely bunch of friends Dr Gono has

Hitherto obscure allies of YourGovernor aka Dr Gideon Gono
Embattled RBZ governor Dr Gideon Gono has, like his embattled country must be the proud associates within a league of friends that must make anyone feel totally secure in hours of nee if events in the past fortnight are anything to go by.

Zimbabwe currently hosting the COMESA summit played host to three “illustrious” African leaders in despotic President Sudan's President Omar al-Beshir, Swaziland’s absolute monarch King Muswati III and of course popular Madagascan “President “ Marc Ravalomanana.

A night out at the splendorous Victoria Falls for President Mugabe and the trio with the exiled illustrious deposed Ethiopian President Haile Mariam now safely ensconced in Zimbabwe after fleeing irate Ethiopians he had politically abused for decades in attendance as Zimbabwe presidential guest of honour would be the most exhilarating experience for this rare breed of leaders

They do have so much in common the night would pass away like a second while they share sick practical jokes about how they have enjoyed their time in political leadership watching their opponents being bludgeoned to death and into submission by their unflinching supporters.

It could also provide the ideal environment for these “revered” African statesmen to share insights and personal experiences on how it is like to preside over unwilling subjects and in total disregard of international sentiment on the rule of law, human rights and democracy.
President Mugabe must be feeling very proud to be in the company of trusted friends like King Muswati III, President Omar al-Beshir, and the deposed Marc Ravalomanana, and Haile Mariam.
And for this rare moment in his life, to occur in a week where Iran’s ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Rasoul Momeni expressed his country’s unflinching solidarity with Zimbabwe in its fight against oppression, presumably from the illegally imposed Western sanctions, must have added sweetness to the occasion.
King Muswati III is the current chairman of the SADC troika on defence which organ worked diligently to restore Mugabe’s legitimacy after he had lost the March 28 presidential elections to Morgan Tsvangirai only to mobilise the military to safeguard his retention of the Zimbabwe Presidency against the wish of the electorate.
Sudan President Omar al-Beshir, is fighting an International Criminal Court of Justice warrant of arrest for crimes against humanity in the Darfur region and needs every friend possible who will not hand him over for prosecution and with Mugabe taking over COMESA chairmanship and willing to host the despotic Sudanese head of state the friendship must have been strengthened.
Deposed Madagascan President Marc Ravalomanana is in the political woods and has a four year jail sentence and $70-million fine for abuse of office in buying a presidential jet, hanging on his neck should he ever set foot in Madagascar at present but Zimbabwe still recognises him as the legitimate Madagascan president notwithstanding his fugitive status.
Mengistu Haile Mariam is another fugitive former President ensconced in Zimbabwe after fleeing the wrath of his former subjects in Ethiopia.
We are all bound by the autocracy that imposed the coalition government on us to be proud of this kind of friendship that our country courts or risk being labelled enemies of the State and suffer attendant recrimination associated to that label.
God forbid!
The pride we must feel from our country’s association with the singled out three distinguished visitors in our country and the fourth who is a permanent fixture in our midst must be the same pride Dr Gono must be feeling from the arm of friendship extended to him by numerous friends most of us were unaware he has after the damage he has caused during his tenure of office at the central bank.
Dr Gideon Gono had always boasted that he was Mugabe’s loyal subordinate and confidante as well as personal friend notwithstanding the age gap between him and his master.
The age gap did not raise any eyebrows because President Mugabe is reputed for getting along very easily with the youth given his marriage to Grace who is 40 years his junior and his unfailing attendance of the 21st February Movement celebrations of his birthday.
For me has fond memories of being my grandpa’s right-hand-man at the tender age of six until he died, God save his soul, the age gap was a none issue in determining who the President befriended and I have always taken Dr Gono’s friendship claim with the President seriously given that the President’s wife hails from Buhera and is in the same age group with Dr Gono who comes not just from the same district but neighbouring village to that Grace hails from.
When President Mugabe declared that he would not reverse his unilateral extension of Gono’s tenure as reserve Bank Governor, I knew he meant every single word and that only some degree of force would persuade him to rethink the statement.

It was also never in doubt that the generality of Zimbabweans were not happy with Dr Gono’s fiscal management policies that in a day created quadrillionaires and trillionaires among them and on the following reduced them to paupers with no savings to their credit after the central bank announced lopping of zeroes from their savings.

The driving force behind the MDC determination to contest the unilateral extension of Dr Gono’s tenure of office in a Ministry Zanu PF had reluctantly surrendered to an MDC nominated steward was never to be underestimated and I am convinced the matter will only be resolved if Dr Gono is removed from the post by whatever means regardless of President Mugabe’s vow that the RBZ governor was there to stay.

It is however the latent friends of Dr Gono who were unleashed by the Presidential decree to openly declare solidarity with the embattled Governor that surprised many neutrals.

The Army generals who have vowed never to salute any leader who does not have liberation war credentials have a special dispensation when it comes to Dr Gono.
They say he has atoned for his failure to join the 2nd Chimurenga (Liberation Struggle) through actively participating in the third phase and emerging as its key financier.

The 1st Chimurenga refers to the uprisings led by Mbuya Nehanda and Sekuru Kaguvi against British settlers. It was ruthlessly quelled and the leaders were hanged.

The 2nd Chimurenga is commonly used to the Zanu/Zapu led uprisings against colonisation which culminated in the attainment of the country’s political independence on 18 April 1980.

It was a bitter struggle that claimed several lives from across the divide of armed protagonists and civilians caught in-between the fighting forces as well as refugees who had sought shelter in neighbouring States.

The 3rd Chimurenga refers to the chaotic Zanu PF inspired commercial farming land invasions that were initiated following growing unpopularity with Mugabe’s leadership of the country among the trade Union and Labour movement and the disenchantment within 2nd Chimurenga surviving War Veterans and their dependants who felt Mugabe had deviated from the ideals of the struggle they prosecuted.

This was a one sided contest between the armed and government sponsored Zanu PF militia and outnumbered, unarmed and sparsely situated White Commercial farmers that claimed victims in the later and their workers.

Zanu PF had lost political support over poor economic management and corruption and used the Land Invasion as a means of rescuing the waning fortunes of the party.
Dr Gono was drafted into this phase for the sole purpose of financing the project at a time when the government had been looted clean and its international relations badly damaged by negative publicity following violent electoral conduct and impunity on titled commercial farmlands.

Dr Gono waged an onslaught on financial institutions that provided options for commercial farming financing plundering and pillaging their assets and parcelling the ill gotten wealth to finance the militant land invasion that destroyed the well developed farming infrastructure in the country and Zanu PF electioneering .
He gained the respect of the military commanders who gained immensely out of the chaos that ensued.

But as the Zanu PF inner circle prospered the rank and file citizenry were reduced to abject poverty and disenchantment with Zanu PF governance increased especially among workers whose agro driven industries collapsed under the weight of poor financing and a highly centralised and militarised bureaucracy.

Instead of rejuvenating Zanu PF the chaotic land reforms boomeranged and left Zanu PF a loathed political initiative people rued they had never elected to power in the first instance.

The militarisation of the bureaucracy demanded the systematic manipulation of information to keep the citizenry behind the Zanu PF initiatives and shunt the causes of attendant poverty to elsewhere and the MDC and western democracies that were complaining about human right abuses in the country came in handy.

Dr Gono must be proud to be singled out as the priced sponsor of the military Junta that vandalised the country’s agro industrial base with disastrous consequences on national productivity and economic growth.

Dr Gono who liked to refer to himself as the people’s governor would be equally happy that the people are still vey much behind him.

The unilaterally appointed Zanu PF Provincial governors represented by Mashonaland West governor advocate Dinha pronounced that people in provinces they lead are firmly behind Dr Gono in his fight to retain the disputed central bank governorship.

It must give Dr Gono a lot of happiness to know that these governors who were not elected but appointed by his friend have rallied the people who rejected them at the polls to his side.

He is now a truly people’s governor except that the people must now be qualified as Zanu PF supporting people in the provinces and they are not many judging by electoral results from the provinces.

The surviving 2nd Chimurenga War Veterans are equally unwavering in their support for “Your Governor.

It must be a source of great comfort for Dr Gono to know that the Joseph Chinotimba led groping of 2nd Chimurenga refugees and so called War Veterans are friends of Your Governor prepared to die one more time to secure his jab at the Central Bank.
And these war Veterans usually carry extra blessings of spiritualists like evangelist Bishop Trevor Manhanga.

Naturally the traditional leadership under the Chiefs’ council are behind Dr Gono for he alone has managed the feat of providing them with trucks, generators, scotch carts, ploughs, harrows and tractors they can’t drive for resale to any willing buyer.

His witty advisor Erick Block has also assured him that not only is he a genius at sanctions busting but he has a host of aces up his sleeve that if allowed continued tenure at the Central bank he will unleash to turn around the country’s economic fortunes he managed to save from imminent collapse under the weight of illegal sanctions.

This must be most gratifying seeing Zanu PF does not take kindly to its key functionaries taking advice from pale skinned descendants of colonialists who unleashed the scourge of the MDC on the country.

Only the very cowardly and most easily manipulated Whites are allowed near Zanu PF corridors of power and they have to pay heavy bribes for that so that Dr Gono can become the only head of a central bank to run the second largest chicken farm in the continent and through it externalise as much forex as can be laid hands on for Zanu PF’s benefit.

And now that Your Governor has impressed King Muswati II with his business acumen in rearing chickens SADC will be rallied behind him so that he can remain at the central bank and transform it into the largest chicken farm in Africa as well.

And in doing so, the grateful MP’s whom he bailed out of transport blues with free second hand vehicles that were excess to the Central bank’s requirements after its quasi-fiscal indulgences were brought to an abrupt halt by that financially semi-literate Lawyer from the MDC now masquerading as the best financial engineering brain ever to grace our country when all he knows is the art of selling out to neo-liberal Anglo-Saxon wishes for regime change that would replace our sovereignty, will come in handy by legislating for his continued stay as advised by propagandists at the Herald.

Dr Gono is forever indebted to these illustrious scribes in key positions at the State Media houses who have shown unflinching determination to keep him in the prestigious position he holds at the central bank.

It is not very often that beneficiaries remember when to pay back favours to their former benefactors when they have a bad patch as is the case with Dr Gono. But the rare breed at the State Media houses are not just ordinary beneficiaries of the Zanu PF patronage system.

They are truly dependable comrades and all weather friends of the Zanu PF leadership. They have been well trained and will never bite the hand that feeds or fed them unless the President commands them to do so.

The Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions are friends that d Gono cannot afford to be alienated from at this trying period in his career.

They are the people who carried out mop up operations to clean white farmers of any finances they had invested in downstream agro processing industries that were closed as farm productivity dwindled to nothing due to the chaotic land reforms.

The agro industrialist farmers had to retrench the workers and the ZFTU was there handy to motivate generous and extortionate packages from the dispossessed famers and agro industrialists.

That is why Secretary General Mr Ephraim Tsvaringe said the union applauded and cherished the noble programmes implemented by Dr Gono.

"ZFTU applauds and cherishes the noble programmes and stop gap measures implemented by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe under the direction of Dr Gono to salvage the country’s economy from disintegration and total collapse which could have brought about economic chaos, social disorder and anarchy," said Mr Tsvaringe.


"Accordingly, we call on the powers that be not to yield to the unwarranted pressures and calls for the ousting of Dr Gono, for to do otherwise will be tantamount to pandering and throwing in the towel to the dark forces of evil and retrogression," he said.

Touching endorsement of his financial ingenuity from the people who benefited from Your Governor’s his interventions we must concede.

ZEPPDRA national chairman Victor Panganai Kuretu who leads the hazy grouping of people that claim to have been detained and or imprisoned by the British colonists for supporting the 2nd Chimurenga is also a good friend of Dr Gono.

"It is also not a secret that President Mugabe appointed Dr Gono to bring sanity and stability to the economy and to steer Zimbabwe,’’ said Kuretu.

And boy did he do that well by ensuring inflation exploded from an excruciating 659% when he joined to off radar % when the coalition government took over five years after his initial appointment. Kuretu and his organisation that has for decades been scoffed at by President Mugabe and Dr Gono whenever they have sought State compensation for their troubles in supporting the 2nd Chimurenga, is impressed by that sterling performance.

Any wonder why he cannot secure compensation for his followers from the very people they wer vandalised for supporting?

No serious politician would be convinced to pay a soft as tissue and easy to manipulate zealot like Kuretu and his ZEPPDRA followers if he at this stage believes President Mugabe is impressive in his apolitical choice of Dr Gono as Governor of the Reserve Bank when all other supporters of the governor within Zanu PF are categorically stating they are rallying behind him in gratitude for the work he did for their party.

No other party appears to have been extended the favours Zanu PF grovels about having accrued them from Gono’s tenure at the central bank.

"But more so, we recognise the work that he has done for this nation which is second to none when others were running away and jumping ship. Dr Gono stood resolutely. He was so patriotic that even today we talk of a sovereign Zimbabwe," said Kuretu.
With friends like these Dr Gono must be relishing a third fourth and fifth or even life tenure at the helm of central bank.

Even the Zanu (Ndonga) spokesperson, Mr Reketayi Semwayo refused to be drawn into expressing solidarity with the Dr Gono personality preferring rather to urge the coalition government to focus on service delivery improvement rather than personalities.

We are sure Dr Gono is now feeling more confident and better grounded to lead the Central bank to prosperity after these glowing endorsements from Zimbabweans clamouring for his stay at the bank.

But we must remind him that these are the minority. The majority would still want to see his back leaving the Central Bank and no amount of blind support he gets from Zanu PF adherents will change that.

He will forever be remembered as the Zanu PF reserve Bank governor and not Your Governor as he would rather be, but for these Zanu PF morons voicing unsolicited support for him that soils his good name as a competent professional with Zanunisation.