APRIL is the month we celebrate the birth of our country but many questions continue to linger, especially on the issue of unity.

The journey we have travelled thus far has been in accordance with the dictates of nature.

We have encountered our ups and downs.

We have scored many victories on many fronts as a country.

We have paid dearly for those successes and we have gone through periods of political haggling, especially with the opposition.

We have given land to our people.

We have empowered our people.

We have given meaning to the lives of the masses and that is an enduring legacy.

Despite all this, we have a nagging West still trying to destroy all that.

The West has not made a secret of its desire to once again plunder our resources.

We have some elements within the opposition who have been gleefully dancing to that Western song.

It sounds sweet that song.

It has all the fine tunes and a tranquilising melody, but it is not our song.

It will never be our song.

This is why, what happened on Thursday last week in Manicaland must be embraced by all. 

There in Chimanimani, our song was sung.

Those gifted with foresight danced to that song for a reason. Because it is our song, the Zimbabwean song that was being played there.

‘We are Zimbabwe’, is the message that pervaded Manicaland.

We are one, is the statement that echoed across Manicaland.

One hopes the same message and statement will permeate every province in the country.

We hope it will find its way to every person, to every household and to every institution in the country.

This is the Zimbabwe that some of us clamour for.

A Zimbabwe where we all sing the same song, a song of, and for, our country.

There are those who are not seeing where the wind is blowing.

They will be left out.

Or they are simply choosing to ignore the obvious.

But the Manicaland visit by President Emmerson Mnangagwa and leaders of 17 political parties that contested in the July 30 2018 harmonised elections was a clear statement that, united we can propel this country to greater heights. 

That is a path that the belligerent ones would belatedly follow.

This brings me to the brickbats thrown at former MDC-T legislator James Maridadi who has been appointed one of the country’s Ambassadors-designate.

Poor Maridadi is suddenly a ZANU PF agent, his attackers are saying.

That is political intolerance of the highest order.

This is an affront to the politics of tolerance that our leaders have been preaching.

Maridadi, like other Ambassadors-designate, is not, and will not, be representing ZANU PF.

He will be representing Zimbabwe. That includes those who are angry with his appointment.

National duty knows no political bounds.

It is about serving one’s nation.

It is about representing the interests of one’s country.

This is what Maridadi has been tasked to do.

Let him do his job to the best of his ability like what the likes of the late Trudy Stevenson did.

We must cast away the demon of political intolerance if we are to progress as a nation.