Morehouse College, one of the oldest American colleges, has awarded an honorary doctorate to Zimbabwe’s richest man, Econet Wireless Holdings founder, Strive Masiyiwa in recognition for his philanthropic and humanitarian work across the African continent. Masiyiwa is ranked 34 on the Forbes’ list of Africa’s 40 Richest. The Econet Wireless mobile telecommunications company brand has spread from Zimbabwe to conquer Africa and has also moved to the UK and New Zealand. Apart from running the company Strive Masiyiwa is involved in the Capernaum Trust, a charity organization that sponsors children from disadvantaged families with scholarships.

Africa Day is a celebration of African unity across Africa. On the 25th of May every year Africans celebrate Africa Day knowing that they are free from the bondage of colonization and apartheid. I remember reciting the poem “Founding Fathers of the OAU We Salute You” when I was still in primary school. It was a wonderful poem.

In 1999 African leaders made a Declaration for the formation of the African Union with the view to accelerating the process of integration in the continent, to enable it play its rightful role in the global economy while addressing multifaceted social, economic and political problems compounded as they are by certain negative aspects of globalization. The changing of the organization’s name did not change African problems as right now the African continent is riddled with conflicts, famine, human rights abuses and under-development. Recently North Africa was at the epicenter of conflicts and the masses took to the streets denouncing poor leadership. Lives were lost on the streets and the African Union failed to come up with concrete resolutions. The intervention of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in Libya and Ivory Coast exposed the AU and left many people asking whether African problems should be solved with African remedies. The hard won independence by South Sudan was short lived as the battle for the vast oil reserves with Sudan rages on. Regional bodies like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has proved to be much more effective than the AU in trying to solve political impasses that had erupted in the West Africa region

Southern Africa has not been spared either as evidenced by the continued human rights abuses by the member states. Governments of National Unity are now the order of the day in Africa as the rule of law and the will of the people no longer counts. Most governments continue to rely on donor funding for sustenance and food aid to avert hunger.  The African Union’s new headquarters where the African leaders converged on the 25th of May was built using funds from the Chinese government. Africa has become the dumping of foreign products especially from our friends from the East. Sub-standard goods have flooded African markets resulting in the shutting down of local industries. Africa’s participation in the global village is facing challenges due to the fact that the continent continues to export unprocessed goods. Poor remuneration has resulted in massive brain drains across the continent. HIV and Aids has also taken its toll in Africa. Each year passes and more problems continue to affect Africa while the continental body loses its relevance.

A weekend full of events for Mark Zuckerberg. It began with Facebook going public on Friday and share prices jumped from $38 to $42; thanks to my subscription and yours too as a Facebook user. And on Saturday Mark got married in private. Yes it was a private event with no uninvited guests including me – His Friend on Facebook. I didn’t even get a word – not even a small e-card for the wedding. I just saw photos on Monday morning. I was very bitter about this. Mark Zuckerberg got married in private and yet he wants everyone on Facebook to know our business with those third party applications.  Facebook is good but not with the nasty requests for my personal data which keep on coming from the third party applications that Facebook introduced on its social networking platform. The reason why the Facebook founder decided to go private for his wedding clearly shows that there is no privacy on Facebook.

Media is now the new battlefield for the two main political parties in the country who are trying to sell their views to the people on the new constitution. By just reading an opinion article in the press with regards to the new constitution one can easily tell which party the author belongs to. State media has roped in the services of some of Zimbabwe’s finest spin-doctors to write damning articles about the new constitution process. One prominent columnist who featured in the one of the state’s weekly bulletins went on to label the Constitution Select Committee (COPAC) as a ‘mafia’ and writing in support the other columnist also added venom to the onslaught by describing the first draft of the constitution published by COPAC a ‘regime change tool’. They are using the issue of “homosexuals rights” as a match winner for their campaign. A whole page full of nothing but anti-West sentiments is dedicated to the prominent and regular columnists who are now working full time to discredit COPAC.

What should be a people driven constitution like what Professor Lovemore Madhuku always called for is now turning into a party driven constitution. The views of the people are now slowly being disregarded and thrown out the window. Not to be outdone the opposition parties have taken their views to the private media and their battle is in support of the constitution drafting process lead by the COPAC team and hoping for reforms to some of the laws in the current constitution. Advocating for the early rejection of the COPAC process is like what some stakeholders and columnists are already doing clearly shows that the end result will be a negotiated constitution with some sections of it being borrowed from the Kariba draft and the current Lancaster House constitution.

If the predictions of the end results are correct why then did the three signatories to the Global Peace Agreement endorse COPAC and waste millions of donor funds on a document, which can be negotiated in the comfort of their offices. And if there is going to be a referendum as promised it will be used as benchmark in preparation for the promised elections just like what happened after the rejection of the 2000 draft constitution. Another government of national unity is the least that the people of Zimbabwe will expect after the next elections.

First it was the cars, followed by salary increments, then sitting allowances, now its demands for residential stands in leafy suburbs. What is most fascinating about these latest demands is the choice of area. Meaning MPs want residential stands in the areas like Borrowdale Brooke, Grey Stone Park but not Budiriro or Mufakose. Most of these legislators never owned a residential stand even in the high-density suburbs where the Povo live and where the bulk of the greedy lawmakers came from. Hiding under the disguise of the fact that the government owes them money in sitting allowances so they should be given the stands at a subsidized rate leaves one wondering if the law makers are holding the country hostage. Since they are the lawmakers they are just going to pass the resolutions and get the stands just like their previous demands at the expense of the taxpayer.

Such a clever and calculating move comes at a time when the nation is still gripped with fear of early elections meaning some of these MPs are now preparing for the future in the event that they lose the elections and get booted out of office.  Off the record some of these MPs have failed to attend Parliament sessions. Use your vote wisely in the next elections and don’t let your X cost you in the next five years.

Since the introduction of the Internet in Zimbabwe a lot of people have started to embrace social media as a means to share information and to socialize. In countries in the Middle East social media was mainly used to cover the Arab spring protests where citizen journalists, only armed with a camera phone and Internet connection, managed to cover the events. Recently in Zimbabwe the press has been awash with stories of poor service delivery. The most recent and painful one being of a child who was seriously burnt by naked ZESA cables, the child eventually died. The good thing about citizen journalism is its done by citizens reporting on issues relating to their day to day lives and one can it do it without incurring any costs. Since an informed citizenry is a basic principal of self-governance, citizen journalists are the people who report from the ground and this makes their stories more credible than most of the profit driven articles we now read from the established media houses.