When Robert Mugabe was removed from power in a military coup in November of 2017, thousands of Zimbabweans celebrated and danced in the streets across Zimbabwe.
Little did they know that they were celebrating the demise of a brutal dictator who was just about to be replaced by an equal if not more vicious ruler and kleptomaniac regime.
I was one of many Zimbabweans who couldn’t imagine anyone else being worse than Mugabe, I was thoroughly proved wrong by his successor.
Mugabe’s successor Emmerson Mnangagwa turned out to be just another Robert Mugabe, only without the eloquence or Mugabe’s intellectual capacity.
He is just a plain ruthless dictator who unlike Robert Mugabe doesn’t pretend to be democratic at all.
“We will rule, and rule and rule,” he likes saying when addressing political rallies.
Read Also: Why women are dying in Nigeria and how to help save them
I became a victim of his ruthlessness on July 20 this year. After uncovering a US$60 million covid-19 looting scandal with other journalists, I became public enemy number one in the ruling party ZANUPF, and the presidency threw everything at me.
A press conference was convened by the ruling party to insult me for having linked the scandal to the President’s family, linkages which were based on pictorial and documentary evidence after his son had denied knowledge of the bogus company, and its director who were used to loot the covid-19 funds.
A couple of weeks later, 8 State agents with AK47s came to my home without a warrant of arrest.
They used one of their AK47s butt to violently hit a dining room sliding door glass.
They entered my home through my dining room and dragged me out, forcing me to walk on broken glass without wearing shoes.
Two days later I was taken to court, and as usual and expected, I was denied bail three times, only to get it the fourth time after spending 45 days in prison.
I spent those 45 days in Chikurubi maximum prison without trial, and the State media was unleashed against me demonizing our cause for a society free of corruption and repression.
It was therefore very easy for me to understand the Nigerian #EndSARS campaign because it was rooted in the same struggles that the African youth are engaged in.
Mnangagwa announced the arrival of his presidency with the shooting and killing of unarmed civilians on August 1st in 2018.
They were shot at from the back whilst running away from the military on a day when there was a massive election anti-rigging protest.
Five months later in January of 2019, Mnangagwa’s regime was at it again, many protesters were killed but this time in their homes.
Woman were raped and youth members identified with the opposition were beaten up
The protests had been triggered by a fuel price hike at a time when the average worker was earning less than US$25 per month.
They earn even less now.
The use of brutality to underpin rogue regimes in Africa is now becoming difficult because of social media and a politically conscious youth.
Many including myself have managed to make an impact in educating the masses, in my case using my twitter handle @daddyhope and my facebook page @hopewellchin’onojournalist
This works because of the response by the Mnangagwa regime of throwing me into jail using my tweets as evidence in court and an excuse to bring draconian laws to control social media engagement.
The ultimate price that Africa can pay is huge if African youths do not stand up for their rights, their future will be stolen, and they will have themselves to blame.
In Zimbabwe Burnaboy is a hero because of how he dealt with not only the #EndSARS protests, but because he supported the #ZimbabweanLivesMatter social media protests when many of us were imprisoned.
This shows the interconnectedness across the continent of our struggles for democracy, and an end to corruption and brutality.
