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One of the greatest moral truisms being that the more a monkey — with its penchant for tricks and assumed smartness — climbs up a tree, the more it exposes its genitals.

Does that sound familiar?
You might have heard of how pointing an accusatory finger implies that three more would be pointing right back at your chest.
For those of us who are Christian, the truism of specks and logs in the eyes comes to mind.

The greatest musician to ever come from this land, Chimurenga music guru Thomas Mapfumo, adds his wisdom.
He sings: “Mwana wamai ndikubatsire/Imba yevamwe siyana nayo . . . Zvaunoona siya ikoko . . . Pane ruzhinji panonakidza.”
This is about public excitement and concentrating on other people’s business at the expense of yours.

I have noticed that there are some people who take it upon themselves to preoccupy themselves with the goings on in other people’s homes, and work.
Rather than do their work, they decide to “work” other people, not realising that in so doing they are exposing their bottoms for scrutiny.
Admittedly this is a universal issue — almost — which you can easily relate to in society and work.

Developments in the people’s Government this week, where two State organisations — National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe — literary went for each other’s throats over the control of a cash cow called the Victoria Falls cheered on by some we-know-it-all non-governmental organisation, are not only worrisome but an affront to progressive thinking.

Yours truly was not surprised because it all started with Environment Africa, playing the role of a teaser bullock and its chief executive Charlene Hewat, herself playing the teaser heifer.

Those who herded cattle like me, surely remember how the teaser bullock would cause the fight, aided by a heifer with sporadic darting runs, here and there, tail up, hind legs systematically kicking the air as the territorial bulls eventually move to lock horns.
The bullock bellows loudly, smashes its horns against mounds of earth and tree stumps, spattering the surroundings with semi-solid dung and one would think the bullock would stage a David-Goliath fight.

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Defaced with mound soil, the teaser bullock goads the big territorial bulls to fight but when the fight eventually erupts, the teaser bullock is nowhere to be seen.
Neither is the heifer.
All they do is watch from the sidelines while the territorial bulls kill each other in blood and thunder.

Those in the know will agree that it all started as a small issue, involving a small state-of-the-art restaurant built by Shearwater, with permission from National Parks.
We all wondered why that development irked Environment Africa in particular, itself a mere NGO of less substance when compared to Parks but it turned out that the project was fronting the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe to take over the Victoria Falls, where about US$7 000 changes hands everyday, through gate takings.

Unbeknown to many of us, perhaps more so to National Parks, the fight against the Rainforest Restaurant was just a teaser, the big fight was yet to come.

As the mystery unfolded, last Friday armed policemen assisted National Museums to pull down the National Parks flag and hoist their own.
They also took over the cash collection points.

The equally armed parks rangers resisted but a gun battle was averted when Parks director-general, Vitalis Chadenga — thanks for his maturity and mastering the art of diplomacy — ordered his troops to stand down, while the matter was being solved.

But how can a Government department attack another and, worse still, invade another’s premises and cause chaos and mayhem at an international acclaimed tourist attraction?
Was that right? Was the invasion called for?

The majestic falls are in a gazetted national park area and what is there are structures at the entrance built by Parks and suddenly taken over by NMMZ, which has just invaded. All that is there for NMMZ is the statue!

Their monument there is the statue of colonialist David Lingstone, who besides popularising the Victoria Falls by naming them after the Queen of his country and telling his kith and kin about the “discovery”, did not do anything better than the Tonga who lived there and kept the falls sacred and uncorrupted.

NMMZ, for all what I have known them, have failed to manage many structures throughout the country and should have no business going against a Cabinet decision that has not been rescinded.
If such a Government organisation of the pedigree of NMMZ can be misled by ill-directed NGOs, then God forbid, for we would want to know which Government they are serving.
Instead of locking horns in a combative and conformational approach with National Parks, NMMZ should have sought Cabinet intervention and rescission of the previous resolution before moving in.

Zimbabwe is not a rogue State as detractors would want to paint and it is such events that backfire on us.

We need to manage our issues through our structures.
Zimbabwe is a country with governance structures, which a small fly like NMMZ should adhere to.
Anyway, yours truly’s sources in Cabinet say the decision-making body will not tolerate that kind of behaviour and NMMZ should be censured for it.

Vice President John Nkomo, a very sober man of all times, is dealing with it and his decision is certainly a sober one.

Minister Stan Mudenge, the world acclaimed historian and himself the chairman of the United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organisation in Zimbabwe, is said to be livid and shocked by the NMMZ behaviour and I am sure by the time of publication, the NMMZ will have been put in its rightful position.

Minister Mudenge is the vanguard of the Victoria Falls since Unesco declared Victoria Falls a World Heritage Site. There are certainly Government positions to follow and certainly Government procedures to follow, rather than insinuate lawlessness at the expense of the country.

That is the curse and case of NMMZ.

If anything this spat between Parks and Monuments beckons the case in Matopos where Government has given Parks the administration of the park while Monuments administer passage to the grave of another colonialist by the name of Cecil John Rhodes after whom this country was one time unfortunately named.

Under the arrangement, one pays Parks to visit the natural endowments and Monuments to view Rhodes’ grave.
In the same breath, one might still afford to fly from London to view Livingstone’ statue, if he chooses, or to view the majestic Mosi-oa-tunya, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

As it stands, let the NGOs make noise and earn dollars from those gullible Western sponsors but let us not be swayed into destroying what we have because of some obscure we-know-it-all NGO.

Let us not follow these NGOs too much.
A fly that has no advisor will follow a corpse into the grave.