'Let Moyo stew in his unpublished views'

'Let Moyo stew in his unpublished views'

MOYO

• Your Shouts!: Moyo a hero? Are crazy?

• OPINION: 'Moyo just a village hero'

• ADMORE TSHUMA: Jonathan Moyo, my hero

• PROFILE: JONATHAN NATHANIEL MOYO

• Moyo angers ex-Cabinet colleagues with tribal slur

• Full text of Moyo's reply to dismissal from government

• Moyo slams Zanu PF 'politics of patronage'

• Mugabe drops Moyo from Cabinet

• Mugabe's spin doctor quits, goes independent

• Msika snubs Moyo's Tsholotsho plea

• Moyo bombshell: Gukurahundi killed my dad

• Matsanga delights in Moyo's misfortunes

• Moyo sues Dabengwa, Nkomo for $2bln

• Zanu PF lifts Langa, Ncube's suspension

• Moyo: 'Tsholotsho will hold Nkomo to account'

• Moyo lays into Nkomo, Dabengwa as Zanu PF stalls on Tsholotsho

By Luke Tamborinyoka

Writing for New Zimbabwe.com last week, Professor Jonathan Moyo's friend and former Chief Reporter at the state-run Chronicle newspaper Admore Tshuma painted a picture of a heroic and misunderstood man. Luke Tamborinyoka is the banned Daily News' news editor and says Moyo is anti-freedom and his views should not be reported

MY former editor Geoffrey Nyarota once called me to his office and in the middle of a light-hearted discussion about the values of The DailyNews, he told me to always remember that our newspaper was the voice of the voiceless; the voice of the down-trodden; the voice for the weak.

Ours was a newspaper which was supposed to be the megaphone of those denied their voice and platform to express themselves.

This was at the height of Moyo’s tongue-lashing and vitriol against The Daily News, its reporters and even its readers; never mind the fact that he was an avid reader of the newspaper himself.

“We simply give a platform to the voiceless. If some of these guys were fired from Zanu PF today, they would be the first ones to call at our reception because they won’t be accorded a voice in the public media. By virtue of our role in society, we are supposed to provide them with an opportunity to express themselves and be heard,” Nyarota said then.

I have been on a soul-searching mission for the past five days, trying to imagine whether I would have given the sacked minister of Information, Jonathan Moyo, the platform to express himself if he had not closed The Daily News.

Following his dismissal from Cabinet last week, it is highly likely the former Information tsar would have turned to newspapers such The Daily News to fire his now daily potshots at his erstwhile colleagues in Zanu PF.

I simply would have ignored the man and his rantings because he is the only man I know who does not deserve anyone’s sympathy. My heart bleeds to see my fellow journalists in the private press according him acres of space and interviews to pour his usual scorn ever since the public media became a no-go area for him on black Saturday.

How the might have fallen.

But I believe it is time for journalists to stand up and say ‘No’ to these exclusive interviews he is so generously granting nowadays. It is time to say ‘No’ and to let the infamous professor stew in his own unpublished views. It is time to let him wander alone, unloved and unaccompanied, in the wilderness of Tsholotsho contemplating whether he should in fact start his own Tsholotsho Times to make himself heard.

And judging by the changing tide, his Tsholotsho Times might even be denied registration by his own Media and Information Commission because the last few weeks have seen this erstwhile high prophet become unbelievably ordinary indeed. We have seen all and sundry denying any association with him ever since the Tsholotsho backlash started flooding the political terrain.

It is time to remind him that during his tenure as government minister, he has ostracized so many of us in the private press that we cannot hear his pleas for coverage. We are simply too far from him by virtue of the distance he created through acts of commission and omission.

Why has it suddenly become permissible to leak stories to Blair’s newspapers?

For a journalist like me for whom Moyo brought untold misfortune by closing The Daily News, it is difficult to remain neutral and balanced when dealing with the contentious issue of Jonathan Moyo.

"It is time to say ‘No’ and to let the infamous professor stew in his own unpublished views"

LUKE TAMBORINYOKA

For people like me, a defendant in four pending lawsuits for alleged “defamation” against the professor, and against whom he fired several potshots from his lofty pedestal at Munhumutapa, it is difficult to remain a detached and neutral journalist in the aftermath of Tsholotsho on all issues to do with this maniac.

I do not pretend to shed any tears--crocodile or otherwise-on the man who ruined my career and who bestrode the entire political and media scene like a giant Colossus. I will leave the tear-shedding to Admore Tshuma, Stephen Ndlovu and Munyaradzi Huni.

It is my view, and I hold it very strongly, that all right-thinking Zimbabweans must not waste their sympathies on this man. It is my view that Moyo must be allowed to land peacefully, unloved and unmourned, in the dustbins of history.

Moyo must not be given any space in the private media, his very nemesis for which he created a monster called AIPPA.

We must leave him be in Tsholotsho to face the ordeal of ordinary Zimbabweans. Away from the retinue of aides and embedded journalists who were always in his tow, the police must pounce on him when he meets with any three members of his campaign team.

For was Professor Moyo not part of the rabid dogs that barked loudly for this animal called POSA which makes it mandatory to seek police permission for any meeting comprising four or more people? POSA must indeed haunt him and it must be applied, and applied fully, during the Professor’s rallies in Tsholotsho and the man must suffer the ignominy, like so many other political parties, of applying for police permission for his rallies.

How the mighty have fallen.

I wish the professor a safe journey into the annals of history as the worst minister of Information ever to be appointed in this country.

As comedian-musicians Extra-Large would have put it: “Don’t Come Back.”

We will not miss the professor. We will not miss his vitriol and acid tongue. We will not miss his long tongue which at one time crossed the Limpopo to attract a de-marche from Zanu PF’s allies in Pretoria. We will not miss this so-called workaholic minister of our time. In as far as I am concerned, his hard work was misdirected.

It was like the hard work of a masochist whose industry only results in more pain for those in his proximity!

And now the man has the cheek to complain about lack of democracy in Zanu PF, the very same fact for which he has berated journalists for writing about. It has taken the professor this long to realize there is no way you can talk of democracy and Zanu PF because the two are mutually exclusive. It is like complaining about the lack of Christian values in Islam!

So long, Professor. And please don’t come back!
Luke Tamborinyoka is the news editor of the banned Daily News and former secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com