IN 2008 maputi (roasted corn/maize) became a popular snack due to the shortages of almost all commodities in the country.

Former MDC-T leader, the late Morgan Tsvangirai, gleefully celebrated that sad state of affairs.

The abrasive opposition leader boasted he had the keys to the country’s prosperity.

That was a lie.

Fast forward to 2018, and enter young Nelson Chamisa with his inane politics.

He has been boasting his jiggies politics, claiming that nothing will move in this country without his involvement.

That, too, is a shameful lie.

Jiggies are a local snack brand popular with children and we leave it there because we have serious issues to discuss.

Let us begin by unpacking the MDC-T economic lies with particular focus on their Western handlers who are taking them for a ride.

At Mucheke Stadium in Masvingo, in 2008, Tsvangirai asked: “Are you hungry? Are you suffering?”

Tsvangarai then added that if the people wanted food, they had to remove the ruling ZANU PF from power.

He went on to promise the crowd US$10 billion which he said “…was ready and waiting” from the West only if the people unseated the ZANU PF Government.

Tsvangirai claimed he had ‘friends’ from the West who could make that dream a reality.

Tsvangirai became Prime Minister in the Inclusive Government and the 

US$10 billion never materialised.

If we thought we had seen and heard it all, we did not need wait any longer.

Chamisa came on the scene with even more insanity.

He claimed he had met with the bellicose US President, Donald Trump, who promised him and his deeply divided party a staggering US$15 billion to revive the country’s economy.

That is not the gist of our instalment this week.

The MDC lies have been exposed time-and-again by this publication.

This week, our focus is on the national questions and the events that have taken place in the country in the past few weeks.

This is so when we consider the futile attempt by Chamisa to make himself the nation, to present himself as an embodiment of the history and future of the country.

The call for all candidates who contested in the July 30 2018 presidential elections by President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa was in line with his thrust to bring the nation that has been divided by Chamisa’s jiggies antics together.

It was not, and will never be, a sign of weakness or bowing to ‘pressure’ from Chamisa as has been alleged by some excitable media outlets and so-called analysts who, to their credit, have been quick to come to their senses.

Dialogue will happen with or without the equally excitable Chamisa and the process has already started without him.

Yet the point must be made here and now that this dialogue is not about the boy and his jiggies politics; the country has outgrown his silly games and the nation is forging ahead without him.

This is why, on Thursday, he was quick to rush to the Harare International Conference Centre for the Breakfast Prayer Meeting barely 24 hours after he refused to attend the National Dialogue.

But it is the manner in which the National Dialogue Meeting invitation was covered by some sections of the media that was indicative of the need for the country to have dialogue.

Screaming headlines naively sought to create the impression that ED had specifically invited Chamisa for the gathering when the opposite was true.

Chamisa was said to have ‘snubbed ED dialogue meeting’.

But the same newspapers that, only a week ago, gave the boy extensive coverage to the effect that he had denied his party’s involvement in the January 14-16 2019 violent demonstrations, conveniently forgot to probe a critical point that Chamisa raised in his ‘snubbing’ of the State House meeting.

Chamisa gave the release of ‘prisoners of conscience’ as one of his conditions to taking part in the dialogue.

Why is he now claiming ownership of those prisoners when he has been harping all this while that his party had nothing to do with the fateful January demonstrations?

Why is he resorting to the lie that Zimbabwe is facing a political crisis when he is the political problem in the house?

Why is he playing around the economic ‘crisis’ when he claims he has the answers to the economy?

Why can he not just demonstrate economic prowess by sorting the mess in the local authorities whose majority are controlled by his party?

He claims he has investors from all over the world but he is squandering an opportunity to show the country that he can turn around the fortunes of local authorities.

Why agitate to be smuggled into Government to show the stuff that you are made of Wamba?

You do not need to be in Government to bring investment into the country; you simply do it like what Strive Masiyiwa has done through his US$100 million rural development facility.

Zimbabweans will not be fooled by childish antics and lies by a clearly out-of-sorts politician who believes he is the best thing to have happened to this country.

Zimbabwe is moving, and will continue moving, forward without the naivety of those who do not have the capacity to bring anything meaningful to the table except hollow political noise.

Let those with ears listen.