Zimbabwe’s arsonist-fireman strategy: burn everything to the ground and return as the savior

Tendai Ruben Mbofana

There is a dark, calculated irony at the heart of statecraft in Zimbabwe. 

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It is a governing doctrine defined not by progress, but by a cycle of deliberate ruin and performative rescue—an arsonist-fireman strategy. 

The authorities set fire to the house, watch it burn to ashes through looting, incompetence, and neglect, and then demand a standing ovation when they return to spray a thimble of water on the smoldering embers. 

We are repeatedly asked to celebrate the crumbs of reconstruction from the very hands that stole the loaf.

Consider the spectacle surrounding our national aviation sector. 

At independence and throughout the 1980s, Zimbabwe commanded an enviable fleet of wide-body, long-haul aircraft. 

Air Zimbabwe’s iconic emblem was a regular sight in international skies, connecting Harare directly to major global capitals like London. 

What followed was a masterclass in systematic destruction. 

Decades of rampant corruption, political interference, toxic mismanagement, and unbridled plunder grounded the fleet, loaded the airline with crippling debt, and saw our planes impounded on foreign tarmacs.

Yet today, the public is expected to cheer wildly because the government has managed to lease a single aircraft from a Spanish carrier to temporarily operate the Harare-London route. 

We are instructed to applaud an arrangement where we do not even own the plane, the crew, or the maintenance systems, simply because our route rights are being used to fly us to a destination we comfortably reached on our own wings four decades ago. 

Leased dependency is paraded as a monumental national achievement.

The same pyromaniac logic plagues our healthcare system. 

In the 1980s and early 1990s, public medical care in Zimbabwe was a source of immense pride. 

Even small-town facilities, such as the hospital in Redcliff—run by the state-owned giant Ziscosteel—possessed fully functional, high-caliber operating theaters. 

There, dedicated medical staff, including my late mother who also served as a theater nurse, regularly participated in complex head and brain surgeries to treat workers injured in industrial accidents at the steel plant. 

Advanced, life-saving neurosurgery was available right in our local community. 

Today, that golden era feels like an impossible myth. 

Chronic underfunding, structural neglect, and state-sponsored corruption plunged the public health sector into a catastrophic freefall, leaving facilities without the most basic pain relievers, clean bandages, or functional diagnostic tools.

Those who can afford to escape fly abroad for routine medical attention, while ordinary citizens are left to perish from easily treatable ailments. 

Yet, when the ministry paints a dilapidated ward, re-opens a decayed hostel, or buys a single modern scanner for a central hospital, state media trumpets it as groundbreaking progress.

Look at our once-laudable education system—a sector that was once the crown jewel of post-independence Africa, producing world-class scholars and setting the benchmark for the continent. 

Decades of systemic underfunding, retrogressive policies, and relentless neglect have reduced renowned schools to crumbling shells. 

Classrooms lack basic textbooks, science laboratories sit empty without equipment, and qualified teachers—once respected middle-class professionals—have been forced into grinding poverty, surviving on poverty wages or fleeing the country altogether. 

Yet, when the government donates a handful of computers to a school without electricity, or hands out a few exercise books during an election campaign, state media hails it as a historic breakthrough in modern learning.

It is mirrored in our economy through state-authored poverty. 

Grand looting at the highest levels of power has stripped the nation of its mineral wealth and agricultural promise, enriching a tiny political elite while plunging nearly half the population into extreme poverty and over 80 percent into general distress. 

When the government hands out a few poultry projects or informal trade kits to desperate citizens, it presents these survival measures as “empowerment” and sustainable economic development.

There is absolutely nothing to celebrate here. 

This is not development; it is a illusion designed to mask regression.

To understand the absurdity of our current state, picture a school child who was once a consistent, straight-A student, easily scoring above 90 percent in every subject. 

Through sheer waywardness, reckless behavior, and utter refusal to study, his grades plummet to a deplorable 10 percent. 

If that student eventually scrapes together a 15 or 20 percent on a test, does he deserve a medal? 

Should his parents throw a party to celebrate his “improvement”? 

Of course not. 

That extra five percent is not progress; it is mediocrity masquerading as recovery. 

True achievement only begins when he surpasses the 90 percent mark that represented his actual potential.

That straight-A student is Zimbabwe. 

The standard of living, public infrastructure, and institutional competence of the 1980s and early 1990s represent our baseline, not our peak potential. 

Until this country surpasses the functional excellence of its past, we are not developing at all. 

Celebrations for a leased plane, a repainted clinic, or a makeshift project are meaningless. 

It is just the arsonist boasting about the smoke.

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