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Nimeipata article hii kutoka kwenye mojawapo ya magazeti ya Zimbabwe. Nilivyoitafakari, nikaona kama vile inaingia pia katika mfumo wetu wa utawala ambapo siku hizi wasomi wanaacha kufundisha vyuo vikuu kwenda kwenye siasa. Ninawakumbuka akina Prof sarungi, prof Kapuya, Prof Msolla, Prof Ndulu, Prof Mbilinyi, Dr. Msekela, Dr. Kawambwa, na wengineo wengi.
Vile vile kuna akina wenzangu anaojaribu kusimamia vidole vya miguu kusudi kujirefusha zaidi ya asili yao ili nao waonekane kama wasomi: Dr. Makaongoro Mahanga, Dr. Emmanuel Nchimbi, Dr. Mary Nagu, Dr. Deodatus Buberwa, na kadhalika na kadhalika.
Je kweli elimu ya juu ni kipimo cha uwezo kiuongozi?
Vile vile kuna akina wenzangu anaojaribu kusimamia vidole vya miguu kusudi kujirefusha zaidi ya asili yao ili nao waonekane kama wasomi: Dr. Makaongoro Mahanga, Dr. Emmanuel Nchimbi, Dr. Mary Nagu, Dr. Deodatus Buberwa, na kadhalika na kadhalika.
Je kweli elimu ya juu ni kipimo cha uwezo kiuongozi?
Does a PhD really matter in politics?
August 21, 2008
By Sarudzai Barnes
THIS obsession about being a professor or a Master's degree holder in Zimbabwean politics is absolute nonsense.
Contrary to the thinking of many Zimbabwean academics like Professors Jonathan Moyo, Arthur A G O Mutambara, Welshman Ncube and others that only PhD and Masters degree holders have what it takes in politics, I looked at the academic credentials of all Zimbabwean Premiers, from Charles Patrick John Coghlan (1923) to Robert Mugabe 1980, and found out that ‘not all that glitters is gold'.
The first Premier of Southern Rhodesia, Charles Patrick John Coghlan (1923-1927), was a South African-trained lawyer, who came to Bulawayo in 1900 to practice law. He opposed the amalgamation of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) with Northern Rhodesia and South Africa, and in 1921 he led a delegation to England to lobby for responsible government. The colony was awarded self-governing status and he became its first Premier. He did not hold a Masters or a doctorate degree.
Bechuanaland (Botswana)-born Howard Unwin Moffat became Premier of Rhodesia from 1927 to1933). He was the son of a missionary John Smith Moffat, who rose through the military ranks after he fought in the 1893 Matabele War and the Anglo-Boer War. In 1923 Howard became the MP for Victoria (Masvingo), and later the Minister of Mines and Works. Howard Moffat did not possess any outstanding academic credentials, not even a degree, when he became Premier. However, Moffat was notorious for implementing the Land Apportionment Act of 1930, which created the unequal distribution of land, which haunts haunting Zimbabwe today.
UK born George Mitchell, who served as Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia for only two months, from July to September 1933, was the manager of the Africa Bank branch in Bulawayo in 1895. He was the Minister of Mines and Public Works in 1930, and Minister of Mines and Agriculture in 1932. There is no mention that G Mitchell possessed any degree, or had a PhD. Short-lived as his administration was; he too was a Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia.
And then along came Godfrey Huggins (September 1933 - September 1953), the man who crafted the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland to maintain white minority rule. Huggins advocated for a ‘partnership of rider and horse', the white-man as the rider and the black-man as the horse! He saw this partnership as a better evil compared to apartheid in South Africa. Godfrey Huggins was a physician, a London trained surgeon. He, too, was not a professor.
And Sir Roy Welensky is the most interesting of them all. He quit school at the age of fourteen and worked for Rhodesia Railways, rose through the ranks to the position of railroad engineer. Like Morgan Tsvangirai, Sir Roy Welensky was a trade unionist who led the European Railway Workers' Union. Sir Roy Welensky was the Federal Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
Garfield Todd, a reformist and Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia from 1953 to 1958, was a New Zealand born missionary who was educated at Otago University, the University of Witwatersrand and Glen Leith Theological College. Todd removed the degrading title AM (African Male) for African men and replaced it with Mr., a title thereto seen as only suitable for Europeans. He allowed Africans to drink beer and wines (although spirits remained prohibited), doubled the number of primary schools so that every African child received elementary education.
Todd is also credited introducing home-ownership schemes for Africans and allowing multiracial trade unions. White supremacists saw his reforms as dangerous, and disposed him in 1958, but in his farewell speech he noted, "We must make it possible for every individual to lead the good life, to win a place in the sun. We are in danger of becoming a race of fear-ridden neurotics - we who live in the finest country on earth."
Garfield Todd was not a professor. And many years after these words were said, Robert Mugabe and his cronies are turning the beautiful country of Zimbabwe into a nation of ‘fear ridden neurotics' - fear of the West and re-colonization.
Edgar Whitehead was an Oxford University graduate, just like our astute Professor Arthur G Mutambara, but he held just an ordinary degree. Whitehead was Prime Minister of Rhodesia for four years, from 1958 to 1962. He was succeeded by Winston Joseph Field, a UK born immigrant who farmed tobacco near Marondera. He became president of the Rhodesian Tobacco Association before he became Prime Minister from 1962 to 1964.
Ian Douglas Smith had a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Rhodes University. An unrepentant Rhodesian die-hard, Smith presided over a very robust economy, creating a jewel of Africa, despite the economic sanctions imposed on his government by the UN and the West. Smith handed over Zimbabwe to Mugabe with all the bolts and nuts intact, and what did Mugabe do? He unscrewed the bolts from the nuts, and thanks to him, Zimbabwe has the highest inflation in the world, an inflation of more than 11 million percent.
With one of the most educated cabinet in the world, one famous for its many PhD degree holders and professors, Mugabe plunged the economy of Zimbabwe and the infrastructure on a downward spiral. What took previous leaders 90 years to build took him only 28 years to destroy. Instead of crying foul to targeted sanctions, Mugabe should have learnt lessons from Ian Smith, and countered whatever sanctions imposed on him by introducing counter measures to boost the economy. Smith is credited with industrializing the Zimbabwean economy despite the economic sanctions.
Abel Muzorewa was a Prime Minister of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia for six months. A trained teacher and a theologian Muzorewa held two Masters degrees both from the United States. Perhaps with Muzorewa that is when this thing about academic credentials came into fashion, confusing leadership qualities with academic education. There is a difference between being educated, and being an intellectual. We can not deny that Africa and Zimbabwe in particular, had skilled leaders well before the advent of this book thing.
(Sarudzayi E Barnes is a Zimbabwean writer and publisher based in the United Kingdom. Email: sarudzayib@gmail.com.)
