Tendai Ruben Mbofana
During a pre-budget seminar in Bulawayo, Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda offered a shocking piece of advice to a nation bracing for drought.
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He warned of an incoming “Super El Niño” drought and urged Zimbabweans to cope by eating porridge instead of the staple meal, sadza.
He evoked the memory of 1957, recalling how families stretched their small supplies of mealie-meal by diluting it into thin porridge.
These remarks are deeply reckless and irresponsible.
They expose how those who sit in the high corridors of power in Zimbabwe are completely detached from ordinary citizens.
It is an insult to the people.
The ruling elite live in luxury.
They dine on the finest foods and enjoy lavish lifestyles funded by public resources.
Yet they turn around and tell struggling families to survive on thin porridge to save grain.
Will Mr Mudenda and his colleagues in government also abandon their feast tables and eat porridge for the next year?
Will they share in the starvation they casually prescribe to others?
The reality is clear.
A country where millions face starvation whenever the rains fail does not suffer from a bad season.
It suffers from bad leadership.
Look at the basic realities of global trade.
Zimbabwe does not produce oil, yet our filling stations sell fuel every day.
We do not manufacture cars, yet our highways are filled with luxury vehicles.
A country does not face a crisis simply because it does not produce a specific item locally.
Consider countries in the dry regions of the world.
Nations like the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Israel receive almost no rain.
They are covered by harsh deserts.
Yet their people never starve.
Their leaders do not stand on podiums instructing them to skip meals or eat porridge.
These nations import their food.
Their citizens enjoy an abundance of provisions, often far more than countries with fertile soil.
This difference reveals the true value of good governance.
An effective government shields its citizens during a natural crisis.
Drought causes devastation in Zimbabwe because state-authored poverty has trapped roughly 85 percent of the population in absolute deprivation.
People cannot afford to buy imported food when local crops fail.
When the drought arrives, they are left helpless, dependent on food aid to survive.
If Zimbabwe had a responsible government that genuinely uplifted its citizens, ordinary people could simply walk into a supermarket and buy imported food.
But poverty in Zimbabwe is not an accident of nature.
It is the direct result of massive mismanagement, shocking incompetence, and rampant corruption at the highest levels of power.
Even in years with abundant rainfall, most Zimbabwean families struggle to put food on the table due to the crushing cost of living.
This crisis is not about a bad rainy season.
It is entirely about a bad government.
What makes this reality even more painful is the utter lack of empathy from those who cause the suffering.
This is not the first time the ruling elite have mocked the pain of the people.
A few years ago, citizens complained to the President about the skyrocketing price of meat.
Rather than empathizing, he told them to eat potatoes and vegetables instead, claiming they were healthier anyway.
These are the leaders we have the misfortune of having in power.
Zimbabweans deserve better.
We do not deserve to be insulted and mocked by those entrusted with leading us.
Besides, it is they who have placed us in this desperate situation.
We must now speak out and demand the respect, dignity, and responsive governance we truly deserve.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com