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EDITOR — This month will be recorded in the annals of history as extraordinary for Zimbabweans, for it is the month that birthed the Second Republic in the sacred and revered month of November.

Around this time last year, Zimbabweans from across the political divide joined hands to remove the putschist generation 40 cabal that had sadly captured our former President Robert Mugabe taking advantage of his old age.

Of course the rest is history and what is now left for all of us particularly the youths is to draw lessons from that game changing epoch in our national narrative.

Indeed one lesson we learnt back then is that collective national aspirations cannot be stamped or subverted by a few individuals, whatever powers one can yield or promises of a few pieces of silver.

It is in this prism that we can use historical lessons to understand the present and therefore shape our future.

This brings us as the youths to the sad and regrettable utterances by MDC leader Nelson Chamisa that his supporters who went on a rampage all in his name are stupid.

People whom he had incited to riot being stupid?

That is a classical case of betrayal, something that compares to the treachery by one Morrison Nyathi who sold out his own kith and kin during the 1970s and went to bed with the racist Rhodesian government leading to the slaughter at the Nyadzonya attack in 1975.

Chamisa’s supporters must have been left seething in anger, Et tu Brute? They could be saying for none thought that a mother hen would feast on her own eggs negating the pains of motherhood all in a bid to escape the long arm of law.

Of course we already, as the Zanu-PF Youth League, appreciate that indeed those actions were stupid but we are shocked to learn from the party’s leader that it is not only that subversive act that was stupid but also the actors themselves, by this he meant his own supporters, members of the so-called order of the vanguard who, will probably be high on ‘nyaope’ and other cheap drugs.

We certainly have no loci standi to condemn Chamisa to the gallows but we know and are confident that the police are there to do their work diligently without fear or favour.

Isn’t it the police Commissioner General who said “crime does not rot like meat and anytime he (Chamisa) can be arrested?

Knowing how diligent the country’s police are, it can only be a matter of time before this opposition leader who is called Wamba, in celebration of renegades from lands afar, will soon face the music.

Yet we would rather leave matters of the law and its enforcement to the able police for we believe justice will prevail.

But we have a critical take-away from that stupid statement.

Chamisa has no respect for his own supporters, he uses violence for his gain and if that fails, he retreats like a coward and shifts blame.

He is the one to use, abuse and then dump and that is what he has done with perfection and the precision of a heartless surgeon.

Chamisa should stop using the youths for his gain, he should behave like a leader of an opposition party instead of behaving like leader of some terror group that thrives on mayhem and confusion.

If indeed Chamisa is a man of the cloth as he claims he must lead by example, condemning violence and behaving like a true Christian.

But for now he has not exhibited traits of a true leader instead he is the best example of a selfish pretender who uses people to advance his narrow parochial interests.

History shows us that while we as Zanu-PF believe in the Constitution and the rights therein, Chamisa whose future as the leader of the small and disintegrating party now hangs by the thread, believes that violence is a means to an end and an appropriate vehicle for him to be accommodated in government, never mind the inescapable truth that he lost the elections and now behaves oddly like a spurned lover.

Now, Chamisa wants to whip Zimbabweans into demonstrating.

Any person can see that this is his latest attempt to sneak into government through microwaving chaos and inciting his supporters to loot shops and disrupt business.

The youths should refuse to be used, the genie is already out of the bottle and it is clear that this guy called Nelson is not only mischievous but a loose cannon who has to be rejected by any patriotic Zimbabwean.

Youths must not just demonstrate for the sake of it, no the youths should take stock and count what we have now compared to what we had a year ago.

There are some pains here and there, some unscrupulous businesses have hiked prices but these are pains we have to go through, cognisant to the fact that investors are making a beeline to come and invest in Zimbabwe.

Remember that you can only reap what you sow and right now we are at that stage, nothing happens overnight but the tendrils are already sprouting, we do not need pessimists to throw aspersions at what is clearly a remarkable phase in our lives through holding unnecessary demonstrations.

As the President said people have a right to enjoy their these freedoms born from last year’s revolution but doing so only peacefully and with respect to the rights of others, knowing that no right is absolute Chamisa should know that only elections determine our political leadership, nothing less, nothing more and no amount of skulduggery, threats can alter that constitutional and legal fact.

Let the youth reject people who want to abuse them and forever hold the nation at ransom, in the process impending economic and social development. Instead of wasting time following a futureless and rudderless people like Chamisa, the youths should put shoulder to the wheel and work for the country.

No one has to be left behind and no one will.

Pupurayi Togarepi