Manyika Embodied True Cadreship
On receiving news of the death of Zanu-PF’s National Political Commissar and Minister without Portfolio Cde Elliot Manyika on Sunday morning, my mind immediately recalled Oliver Mtukudzi’s reflective ditty, Tiri Mubindu, taken off his chart-topping album Nhava.
The song aptly captures human loss and how death tends to rob the best among us. Tuku likens human existence to a flower garden in which any flower that blooms and catches the eye of the gardener is quickly plucked off the stem instead of being left to beautify the garden.
These are the flowers we see either adorning the windows of flower shops, graves, homes and many other places and this week Cde Manyika will join his illustrious colleagues at the National Shrine, having been plucked in his prime.
The song goes in part:
Zvakafanana nemubindu reruva raoma unodiridzira,
Kufanana nemubindu reruva rasvava unosakurira,
Ruva rangoyevedza chete iwe kwachu watanha, wati nguva yakwana.
Rangoyevedza chete iwe dambu watanha,
Anopera rumwe-rumwe
Ruva rakanaka harirarame tinoritanha rangoyevedza,
Munhu akanaka haararame, anotama nenguva pfupi . . .
Well at 53, Cde Manyika was a revolutionary flower in full bloom, having risen through the ranks in Zanu-PF.
He was a party cadre as opposed to the money cadres who buy their way to influence. His constant refrain was “desist from vote-buying”.
Zanu-PF is indeed poorer without him.
Cde Manyika’s commitment to proper decorum is why he was entrusted with the duty of ensuring that Zanu-PF did not sleep on the job at this decisive stage of the struggle when the erstwhile enemy is gearing for a showdown.
The commissar’s job is demanding as it is akin to that of a mechanic who has to ensure that the engine is in condition every time.
Cde Manyika assumed the post of national commissar following the death of the iconic Cde Border Gezi. He began duties with specific instructions from the President and First Secretary of Zanu-PF to turn around the fortunes of the ruling party.
Though Cde Manyika took the baton from a giant, Cde Border Gezi, with time he wore the shoes and rose to the challenge.
His drive was Cde Mugabe’s displeasure at the state of party structures in many provinces, and Cde Manyika admitted that there was a correlation between the party’s performance and the vibrancy of its structures.
To this end, he took it as his personal calling to ensure that the party structures were functional from the cell to the province, and the fact that he met his end on that mission, testifies to the commitment he gave his party portfolio.
It is actually a misnomer to say he was a minister without portfolio, because his portfolio was the well-being of the party that informs Government. This translates to the well-being of Government.
The word “restructuring” had become a cliché on his lips.
I remember asking him about it in an interview on the sidelines of the National People’s Conference held in Goromonzi.
This is what he had to say: “The party can be destroyed in one of two ways: One, if there is acrimony amongst ourselves, we need to be united and ensure that there is peace and unity within Zanu-PF.
“The second aspect, of course, is organisation of the party. The strength of any party, for that matter, is in its structures, more so the grassroots structures. Here I am talking about the cells and villages, branches across the country; we will need to organise those. We have to really mobilise the party, and ensure that it is strong at the grassroots, and also that there are no squabbles amongst the leadership because it tends to confuse the ordinary people if we have squabbles among the top leadership.”
As commissar, Cde Manyika saw Zanu-PF through six national elections: the 2002 presidential contest, the March 31 2005 elections, the November 2005 run-off, the March 29 harmonised poll and the June 27 run-off.
Through it all, Zanu-PF was only shaken on March 29 when internal squabbling gave Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC-T faction a simple majority in the House of Assembly.
The redeeming factor, however, was that despite the sickening tendency by some within the party to sow seeds of division, Zanu-PF still won the popular vote.
Though the divisions saw the party’s presidential candidate, Cde Mugabe, trailing Tsvangirai in the presidential contest, Cde Manyika’s enduring legacy was the massive reversal of the March 29 debacle as expressed in Cde Mugabe’s landslide on June 27.
Indeed the circumstances of his death, which rekindled memories of the loss of his predecessor Cde Border Gezi, probably best sum the kind of man he was.
He died on the road, traversing the length and breadth of the country saTete veMusangano (commissar), arbitrating disputes, rectifying problems, conducting elections, healing wounds, unifying factions ahead of the Annual National People’s Conference that that was set to begin this week in Bindura.
It is fitting that the conference has been postponed in his honour.
Relevant Links
* Southern Africa
* Zimbabwe
The best honour all who consider themselves bona fide Zanu-PF cadres can give him, are not mouth-washed platitudes, but ensuring that the childish divisions and hare-brained schemes that divided the people’s vote on March 29 do not occur again; and that vibrant structures are in place.
As President Mugabe says, a refrain Cde Manyika regularly echoed, each cadre must never forget “iwe neni tine basa”.
Dare you forget that when you call yourself comrade (blood brother).
Take a deserved rest, Samanyanga, your labours were not in vain.
Posted by Caesar Zvayi
on December 10, 2008. Filed under Opinion.
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