What can Zimbabwe do about debt, disaster and Robert Mugabe?

If we arbitrarily date the beginning of Africa’s new independence to 1950, the year in which everybody of today’s sub-Saharan African states were still under colonial rule (except Liberia, which declared independence in 1847, more than a century earlier. Egypt followed in 1922. The modern era began with the freedom of Ethiopia in 1941, Libya in 1951, the trio of Sudan, Morocco, and Tunisia in 1956, and the first black African sub-Saharan country to gain independence: Ghana on March 7, 1957), so the midpoint in that time period between 1950 and today would be 1980.

And 1980 is the same year that Robert Mugabe was elected, to great acclaim in Africa and Europe, as prime minister of newly independent Rhodesia, that colony named after the famous mining plutocrat Cecil Rhodes (who awarded the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford listen)) which soon changed its name to Zimbabwe.

The young Robert Mugabe was a legend in Africa, an extraordinary man who managed to amass seven university degrees at a time when it was difficult for many Africans to obtain the kind of basic education provided in high school.

Born in 1924, Mugabe at the age of 26 earned his first university degree, a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Fort Hare. In the years that followed, Mugabe received (albeit hard work, not as honorary degrees) a bachelor of management and a bachelor of education from the University of South Africa, then a bachelor of science and master of science, a bachelor of law and a Master of Laws, all four from the University of London External Studies Program. Ironically, both law degrees were earned while he languished as a political prisoner in jail. Robert Mugabe suffered for his political beliefs as a political prisoner.

Ian Smith was the last white ruler of Rhodesia and he did not relinquish power voluntarily, easily or quickly. The power struggles of Mugabe, his great rival Joshua Nkomo and the political parties of ZANU and ZAPU need not be recounted here. It was difficult. But Mugabe was seen as a tougher, brighter economic thinker who could lead Zimbabwe to prosperity.

Today, Robert Mugabe is nearly 90 years old and the only leader Zimbabwe has ever known. Can any man or woman effectively lead a nation for 34 years? I suspect not. And frankly, as much as we give Mugabe credit for launching Zimbabwe to freedom in 1980, today the country is, to put it politely, a mess, and Mugabe himself has slowly become a life” corrupt and narcissistic. “That he refuses to consider relinquishing power. It is not the first time that this tragedy has occurred in Africa.

Today, the citizens of Zimbabwe are becoming more outspoken about the financial and political mess they find themselves in. Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti recently commented that Zimbabwe was facing a “crisis of legitimacy, leadership and governance”. A political expert in Harare added that “while it is possible to rig an election, it is not possible to rig the economic results, because they are easy to measure.” Bankers, economists and central planners in Africa, Europe and the Americas have noted a significant deterioration in business confidence in Zimbabwe, a decline in economic capacity and a derailment of Zimbabwe’s economic recovery that began five or six years ago.

But that is not the underlying problem. The underlying problem is that Zimbabwe’s nonagenarian dictator often promised that members of his political party would eventually elect his replacement, but never provided a timetable for that transition. Does anyone seriously believe that the best man to rule Zimbabwe is a 90-year-old man who has trouble remembering what day of the week it is?

There have been reports that Mugabe is suffering from cancer and other illnesses. Mugabe has a much more serious problem than cancer: he has lost all credibility and legitimacy by remaining in power for a third of a century, much longer than most monarchs or emperors. He is too old. He is too corrupt. He must leave the stage immediately.

As recently as September this year, a wave of hope swept across the country, the belief that change was finally coming to Zimbabwe, that Mugabe would depart, taking his sycophantic cronies and stolen loot with him. It wasn’t going to be. Mugabe’s appetite for personal glory and autocratic power in Zimbabwe overrides all other concerns in the capital, and since he controls the armed forces, there is little anyone else can do. One critic of the regime has called it “an Orwellian travesty”, a political process that is “inherently sick, even evil”.

The real horror of Robert Mugabe is that he has gone from being one of his nation’s saviors to a despot who has personally presided over the economic collapse of one of the most prosperous nations in modern Africa. Where did the money go? Who can emerge to lead this increasingly impoverished nation while a dictator controls all the levers of power?

In the mid-1970s, Robert Mugabe was released from prison, having languished in jail for “subversive speech”. He was a hero to millions of Africans.

Today, most would agree, he belongs back in prison, for having blindly robbed his country and made it his personal fiefdom and piggy bank, a nation he can rule like a king until he dies. No, it is time for Robert Mugabe to resign, preferably voluntarily, but if not voluntarily, then with a swift kick in the ass from the citizens he has misruled for so many years.