David Chiguvare, who spent years slogging away on a white-owned farm outside Harare, is now living the dream of being his own boss, courtesy of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's land reforms.
While Mugabe's scheme has been widely blamed for triggering the collapse of the economy, Chiguvare has nothing but praise for his efforts to redress the land ownership imbalance.
"For many of us, the land reforms were a dream that came true and it took a brave leader like President Mugabe to do it. He is a hero," the 42-year-old said as he recalled the days when he was at the beck and call of his employers.
"I was doing all the work on the ground literally running the farm on behalf of my employer," he said.
"Every year my employer took his family on a two-month holiday to Europe, leaving me in charge. Each time he returned and saw everything swinging but all I got was a pat on the back for a job well done," he said.
Employing 110 full-time workers and hiring hands from a neighboring shanty-town, Chiguvare grows wheat, tobacco, soya beans and corn on his Bunkers' Hill farm, just south of Harare.
But critics say much of the land either ended up in the hands of his cronies or with people who had neither the skills nor the tools to succeed.
Once the region's breadbasket, supplying wheat to countries such as Zambia and Malawi, Zimbabwe's agricultural sector has gone into a nosedive since the start of the decade when expropriations began.
Some 4.1 million people -- nearly one-third of the population -- are now in need of food aid, the UN World Food Program has said.
Victims of the land reforms hold Mugabe responsible and are determined to end his 28-year rule at elections this weekend.
Ian Kay, forced off his farm six years ago, is vying for a parliamentary seat on behalf of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Kay said he does not want to just turn the clock back to the days when all the best land was in white hands. A thorough review of the badly flawed land reforms is necessary, however, he said.
While Kay now imports coal, he wants to return to his old farm, south of Marondera.
"I was born there, my parents are buried there. The land was paid for, the developments that are there: we did them," he said.
For Chiguvare however, any such move would be a slap in the face to veterans of the 1970s liberation war, many of whom took part in invasions of the white-owned farms.
"This is what the whole liberation war was about and we cannot go back to the situation which led the heroes of this country to take up arms," he said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS