By Dr Masimba Mavaza. | One American writer by the name Samantha Rose Hill once said” we can shout truth to power and it will never be heard, because truth and politics don’t stand on common ground.”

So how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life; it is always in danger of being perforated by single lies or torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes. Let us consider Vice President’s escapades for a while. Were they fact or fiction? In fact, how does this reflect on our security around our leaders? Truth or fiction.

Vice President Mohadi’s Bedroom Bazooka Misfired Or He Was Trapped?

— ZimEye (@ZimEye) February 22, 2021

It has been said that truth and politics have never been on good terms with one another, and that the lie has always been a justified tool in political dealings.

Fake news is nothing new in politics. For a long time in politics people have been tarnished dragged into thick mud and some soaked in the waters of shame and left hung out to dry. Lies spread by our political have become so abundant that we almost always expect them. Lies have become part of the fabric of daily life in politics.

What stays in people’s minds is that we’ve never really been able to expect truth from politicians.

Coming closer to home we became almost drowned by the Vice President Mohadi’s scandal. We will discuss the scandal in detail however the first thing is to look at the case on the round. The Zimbabwean public was entertained by leaked audio messages which were very romantically graphic between the Vice President and four married lovers, one after the other.

The fact that there were four married lovers is obviously unsettling. The amazement is not on how a 71 year old man satisfies young hungry 4 ladies. This was answered partially. The women provided the libido so the VP got the full package.

Of the disturbing concern is the way our Vice Presidents’ security is pathetic and seriously exposed. We have the very top left open and indeed such security lapses are fatal. Put the sexual scandal aside. Let’s concentrate on the security surrounding our Vice Presidents. “Zviri safe here izvi?”

Firstly an aggrieved man who is in the president’s office goes to the Vice president’s house and starts to dress the second in command down in the VP’s own safe haven. This interrogation of the president took over an hour.

What manner of security is around VP Mohadi? To make things worse, the whole visit and interrogation including the VP’s apologies are captured in the private media and become news for weeks. This is clear that the VP is not safe he is really exposed and the fact that this happened in his house and ends up being shared on social media means that the VP is at risk and the whole security system around him needs to be revamped.

There is no doubt that the behaviour of the VP was disgusting, atrocious and can not be defended. The behaviour was pervasive vulgar and totally horrible, but there is more to the VP’s shenanigans.

Almost every one of his communications via text or voice call was recorded. This means that the VP’s phone has been cloned or it’s bugged. Why do we think of this? The women involved have their conversations recorded. They can never all agree to expose the VP in the process exposing themselves. They are all married and thus could not risk their marriages. So this points to only to one thing that the VP’s phone was bugged.

The question now is who could have done this. Obviously the VP has a lot of political enemies in the former ZAPU cadres. He was appointed VP ahead of so many senior officers and cadres in the ZIPRA pool. Could there be a mole aligned to the camp which has bitterly complained about the VP’s appointment?

To make this a little bit credible there must be a person planted in the VPs security detail. Remember there is a detailed news report which states that an operative came with his wife to the VP’s residence. He produced his ID card at the gate. The officer at the gate phoned the VP and he allowed him to come in. On entering the house they found the VP with another different girlfriend. The girlfriend then assaulted the VP on the forehead with a shoe. Let’s stop there for a while. Who was there to give such a correct sequence of events? Clearly the VP’s security is highly compromised. Remember when this officer and his wife left the VP’s house the VP then rushes to hospital with a bleeding forehead.
You might not see the reality of the threat to security here but indeed it is there.

Listen, it is Mohadi today who is will be next, tomorrow. Talking about these things is not insubordination. It helps those powers that maybe to do something. What is exposed here is not Mohadi’s appetite but a serious embarrassment to our security. So we must take all those questioning Mohadi’s use of his weapon of mass destruction indiscriminately as a risk to national security

Is it Wrong to Question Leaders?
Many societies are guided by biblical teachings and that stretches to leadership lessons drawn from the holy book.

Religion falls into the fundamentalist theoretical frame for ethics. The cardinal reference in that regard is what the bible says about a given phenomenon. Leaders are accountable and should be criticised if they do not uphold certain values. We see that criticism in many biblical contexts.

Many detractors of criticism would like to counter it as disrespectful to criticise leaders. They would suggest leaders come from God, but they would not accept the ungodly acts that attract criticism. For humanity to prosper and to stand up to poor leadership we should embrace criticism as progressive, not antagonistic or disrespectful. That is being responsible for the common good for society.

Lorin Woolfe examined lessons on leadership from the bible and provided a comprehensive list which should help any leader worth their call. The list of lessons includes Honesty and integrity, Purpose, Kindness and compassion, Humility, Communication, Performance management, Team development, Courage, Justice and fairness and Leadership development.

We have seen in the last forty-to-fifty years many female leaders rising.  At the same time levels of corruption and manipulation through sex and sexual abuses by leaders have been on the rise. It appears for many leaders, both male and female being a leader is a licence to sexual abuse, a currency for unlimited access to success. Certainly adultery, especially with married people is both immoral and a sin in biblical terms. So is asking questions about sexual immorality wrong? Surely to any principle-centred person that must be seen as honourable.

If Mohadi is not questioned the security failures will go uncorrected.
Leaders are Expected to Act with Dignity!h They must be accountable. A leader is a guide to those who follow in any given context. Terms like umbrella or torch bearer are often used with reference to a leader’s role. Put succinctly, a leader’s role is centred on providing the light through which the followers walk. It is a call to desist the dark path in the respective context for leadership. History is littered with multitudes of many leaders who dropped their heads in shame, threw in the towel and walked away in shame for failing the role of leadership. However, there are also many people whose thinking is that being a leader is tantamount to being untouchable. They are defiant while immersed in shame and are insensitive to the voice of logic, no matter how loud the call to account they remain adamant. The hard-hearted who find themselves in positions of leadership are a curse to the community they lead. By virtue of their positions, often leaders are held in high esteem, hence their standing is expected to guide society as centres of influence.

Actually John Maxwell the leadership expert would assert that leadership is about influence. As much as leadership demands a high moral ground, at all times as long as mankind has existed there has always been many leaders who hit below the belt and acted in demeaning ways setting a terrible example to society and thereby leading to a discredited situation. Now one may ask as to where the problem might be anchored on for bad leadership. Who is to blame? Well, the point is we more often than not have the leadership we deserve, by design or by default.

We still ask ourselves: was Mohadi set up or his actions made it easy for his enemies to set him up?

There is no correct answer to this but gauging from the easy way it was to clone the vice president’s phone it shows us that there are more forces at play against Mohadi.

Truth-tellers exist outside the realm of politics. They are outsiders, pariahs, and like Socrates subject to exile and death. The lie has always been instrumental to gaining political advantage and favor.

Why now then, all of a sudden, do we decry the emergence of fake news? Why are fact-checkers and fact-checking streams such a common feature of political debates? Why do we care about truth so much in this particular moment?

It isn’t because lying in politics has suddenly become a source of moral outrage – it has always been that. We care about truth because we’ve lost everything else. We’ve lost the ability to speak with ease; we’ve lost the ability to take opinions for granted; we’ve lost faith in science and experts; we’ve lost faith in our political institutions; we’ve lost faith in the Zimbabwean dream; and we’ve lost faith in our democracy itself.

And the sad reality is, truth can’t save us. We can shout truth to power all day long and it will never be heard, because truth and politics have never stood on common ground. They do not speak the same language, but that doesn’t mean the two aren’t related.

Truth is always expressed in terms of proximity, distance and nearness; we approach and depart from truth; ‘come close to it’ or say that ‘nothing is further away from it.’

Truth-telling is related to our understanding of the common realm of human existence, our ability to appear in the world and share our experiences with one another. The modern age has taught us that rational truth is produced by the human mind; that we should be skeptical, cynical, and suspicious, and not trust our senses – so much so that we can no longer rely on our own ability to make meaning from our experiences. The cost has been the common fabric of reality, the sense from which we take our bearings in the world.

Facts and events are the outcome of living and acting together, and the record of facts and events is woven into collective memory and history. These are the stories we tell and the traditions we challenge or uphold which give us a sense of durability in the world. We need this kind of truth in order to have a common ground to stand on, so that each individual can share their experiences and make meaning from them.

“Facts and events at Mohadi’s official residence “are infinitely more fragile things than axioms, discoveries, theories, which are produced by the human mind.”
Facts can change because we live in the ever changing world of human affairs. People can be written out of history books.

This is the point of lying in politics – the political lie has always been used to make it difficult for people to trust themselves or make informed opinions based on fact. In weakening our ability to rely on our own mental faculties we are forced to rely on the judgments of others.

Lying in politics also has the effect of destabilizing political institutions by destroying the ability of citizens to trust politicians and hold them accountable.
We need factual truth in order to safeguard the security of our leaders.

But today uncertainty is fueled by self-doubt and fear of self-contradiction. When we can no longer trust ourselves we lose our common sense – our sixth sense – which is what allows us to co-exist.
Truth isn’t political. If anything, it is anti-political, since historically it has often been positioned against politics. So despite the misfiring of Mohadi’s weapon can someone tell us about the mole and who is sponsoring that mole. Remember tomorrow it will be you. – [email protected]