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Zimbabwe on Saturday celebrated its 40th independence anniversary in a unique way as families were confined to their homes because of the lockdown. This is the first time since independence in 1980 that Zimbabweans failed to gather at either district, provincial or national level to celebrate Uhuru.

This year’s main celebrations were supposed to be held in Bulawayo after Government resolved to rotate the holding of the main celebrations between provinces as opposed to Harare being the only centre for the main celebrations as has been the case in the past. President Mnangagwa addressed the nation via different media platforms and his message was that the nation should brace for hard work after the lockdown.

The citizens as they celebrated their hard-won independence in their different homes, we want to believe, took the opportunity to reflect and take stock of their achievements and failures during the past 40 years.

Zimbabwe after 40 years of independence is now a mature democracy but Zimbabweans should not take the freedom they are enjoying for granted. The sons and daughters of the soil sacrificed their lives to bring about this freedom.

A lot has happened since independence in 1980 and one of the notable achievements was the successful implementation of the land reform progamme which addressed the skewed land ownership which favoured the minority white farmers. More than 300 000 families benefited from the land reform programme which saw a number of new farmers being allocated land in prime farming areas which used to be a preserve of white farmers.

The focus now should be on using the land productively to grow the economy. In his address President Mnangagwa said despite the disruption brought about by Covid-19, the country remained on track to achieve Vision 2030 which entails transforming the economy into an upper-middle-income.

The challenge to every Zimbabwean therefore is to put shoulder to the wheel as we work to grow the economy and improve our general welfare as a people. We have all that is required to achieve our Vision of an upper middle-income economy by 2030 and all that is required is to work hard as a nation.

The challenges we encountered during the past 40 years as we worked towards growing our economy should be a good experience that should work to our advantage.

We have said in the past that it should be Zimbabweans who should take the lead in growing the economy and foreigners should just come in to complement their efforts.

We want to once again urge Zimbabweans to gear themselves for work after the lockdown because we have no option but to double our efforts to make up for the lost time when many of us were idle at home as a result of the lockdown.