By Tinashe Zvakasikwa.

Here is a former Zimbabwe Youth Council chairperson in the newspapers, social media and beer hall discussions again for some unexpected reason. Acie Lumumba insulted President Mugabe with the ‘F’ word at a local hotel in Zimbabwe after delivering his prepared speech for his political party Viva Zimbabwe, because he says he was angry with the 92 year old president’s misrule.

“Now, I am done with my speech, I now speak for myself,” he said as if he has been speaking for anyone else all along. “You have never really seen Zimbabweans angry so here is the red line, Mr President Robert Gabriel Mugabe ‘F… you’, I have drawn the line… My name is Lumumba Lumumba Lumumba; I have said it three times and I say come get me.”

I still feel that there is a certain skill that we are not taught in school. The skill to effectively and efficiently use knowledge and information so that you would receive the maximum benefits from knowledge and information acquired, and increase your awareness about yourself and the world around you. This skill empowers you to have more control, more freedom, more power, more potential, and more possibilities.

Now we all know what power in the wrong hands can do at any level. Give the wrong person, especially with a breed of politicians that we have this day, power to speak at any point, you might be shocked. I have got to understand that no one is stupid, but they just do not have enough knowledge and information in order to accurately understand themselves and the world around them.

By a kind of politicians that we have, I refer to the calibers of Julius Malema, Jacob Zuma himself, Donald Trump, Ben Carson the reluctant fellow who dropped the America Presidential election campaign trail after realising that whenever he opened his mouth he unconsciously, or maybe consciously, utters controversial statements which more often than not left him in an uncomfortable situation and then we have our own, the first lady of Zimbabwe, legislators and MPs who have made the headlines for the wrong and unexpected utterances, and now Lumumba.

Lumumba, who recently sparked controversy when his pornographic video leaked online, with some saying that he leaked it himself for attention, accused President Mugabe of murder and undermining Zimbabweans’ future. He admitted to being corrupt while he was still a Zanu PF member, and added that he would not seek a government position in the future. Who really cares about your political aspirations when you have just admitted to misusing a position meant to benefit the ordinary? If you want to start a political party but do not want to take any political position what does it make you and your party?

Who really cares about your political aspirations when you have just admitted to misusing a position meant to benefit the ordinary? If you want to start a political party but do not want to take any political position what does it make you and your party? Come to think of it, the fact that no other politician has directly and publicly used the unprintable word on President Mugabe does not mean he has more courage, wit and the guts to challenge. Actually the move was not wise and definitely not close to smart.

Not because it might lend him in prison, (of which by the look of things it wont) but because he has no respect not only for a president but for listeners at the particular gathering. Now tell me which parent will be willing attend or let alone to let their children attend Lumumba’s rallies now? He has disqualified himself from the list of role models and certainly from the list of future political office holders.

I have heard that in the music industry if you want to start big and get recognition quickly, you need to sing about and dis the most popular musician at that time like some Zim dancehall young stars I know did. Lumumba might be trying this stance, at least it`s what I think. But like Winky D, it is very mature for the president not to respond to such childish and ignorant behaviour.

Lumumba must know that you cannot change people’s perceptions and behaviour by insulting anyone. Rather, there is need to talk sense, discuss a proposed way out and possibly reach a way forward. Besides discussion there is war, refer to Hondo YeChimurenga 1 and 2. This is what the young fellow has to make clear.

On a lighter note, I was speaking to a colleague one day and what he said to me still give me an adrenaline rush. He asked, “Tinashe, do you think that the man in the white house is the real president Mugabe?” I said, of course why would you even ask that?” He expressed that he thought the real president Mugabe died a while ago, and that man we see as president is only a double who is there for leverage so that the first lady can anchor her roots in the political arena.

He said that he thinks that way because if that man was the real president Mugabe, people would not just wake up and start shouting at squares, hotels and parlies and anywhere they feel like, he would not let that happen. As convincing as it might sound, we can agree that in years past, for this, Lumumba could have been dragged before the courts in a country where merely describing Mugabe as too old to rule can easily earn one in jail or ‘something.’

But then the claim remains unsupported and lacks concrete evidence but is thought provoking. For the likes of Lumumba who are planning to pull such stances in order to gain media popularity and attention, a word of advice. Smarter people are better able to narrate themselves, internally, to avoid inconsistencies, blunders and obvious failures at rationality.

Lumumba is an example of a leader who has failed to do this. I strongly do not think that we need people like him to take on political positions. I mean because you are angry, does it mean that you have a right to go around rattling all sorts of insults to anyone. Diplomacy and tact are not sold.