For one who did so much to deliver universal education to his countrymen as President Robert MugabeUpon taking power at independence in 1980 Mugabe moved with a commitment never before witnessed in any leader to bring education to thousands of black children denied this opportunity by the countrys former white rulers.
By 1981 Zimbabwe boasted free primary education for all children and a few years later, all who qualified were guaranteed admission to secondary school. In no time, Zimbabwe boasted one of the highest literacy rates in Africa at around 90 percent of the population.
Regrettably, Mugabe has and it appears with the same passion as at first when he built education caused the collapse of an impressive public school system in pursuit of some racist agrarian reform programme whose negative impact goes beyond education and far outweighs whatever were the supposed benefits.
The UZ reported last week that out of 1 200 lecturers it requires for effective teaching only less than 500 are available. Some degree programmes have been suspended while some courses are still running only because some foreign do-gooders have agreed to teach students.
Aside the stated (and never achieved) objectives of Mugabes land reforms, aside his claims that Britain reneged on funding land reform an undeniable truth is that the collapse of the UZ and public education, indeed the collapse of Zimbabwes once brilliant economy, is a direct result of the Zanu (PF) leaders chaotic agrarian reforms.
The lecturers who left the UZ, the accountants, scientists, lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers and many other skilled professionals who have left the country over the past decade did so in order to seek better-paying jobs in foreign lands. A rotten economy cannot hold on to its best brains in this global village.
To uproot organised commercial agriculture that was the mainstay of the economy and replacing it with a strange mixture of chaos and peasant farming was in simple language to sabotage the economy. And for this Mugabe alone is guilty!
Zimbabwe could have weathered the storm had Mugabe replaced white-led commercial agriculture with an equally viable and profitable system that allowed every capable Zimbabwean black, white, yellow or of whatever hue to engage in farming.
One of the major reasons why Rhodesia was able to defy real sanctions and a damaging guerrilla uprising for so long was because they kept commercial agriculture running Mugabe does not need to be told this!
Mugabe and his supporters know this: land reform could have been done differently and in a less damaging manner even in the absence of foreign funding.
They chose violence and murder as the means to effect agrarian reform because the true objective was never to resolve the historical land question. We have said it before: the fast-track land reform programme was and is about Mugabe and his party keeping power.
Commercial farms, like all areas where there was a considerable concentration of the working class, had become a dangerous reservoir of support for the labour-backed MDC and therefore a threat to Mugabes hold on power. They had to be destroyed.
For the sake of power they decided to sabotage the economy and livelihoods of citizens. Mugabe and Zanu (PF) might have won the power game they remain in office. But this rot and ruin everywhere shall stand as their true legacy to Zimbabwe.
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga