Nothing is more disturbing than when evil is paraded as cleverness.
Whenever I observe those so-called Zvigananda who have amassed vast wealth through dishonest means, I cannot help but feel both anger and sadness.
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These individuals, who have become infamous for their opaque public tenders—tenders usually awarded without following proper procurement processes, often at grossly inflated costs, and in some cases never delivered or completed—represent the rot that has captured our nation.
They are also known for the wholesale acquiring of state assets and questionable financial benefits from the Treasury.
What I usually see when I look at them is an unrepentant group of people—criminals to be more precise—who believe they are cleverer than everyone else in Zimbabwe simply because of their proximity to political power.
This closeness to the ruling clique has opened doors for them to amass immense wealth through murky deals that are either facilitated or protected by those in charge.
To them and their enablers, this is the height of cleverness.
But is it really cleverness?
Can being a thief ever be described as clever?
Can there be any pride in stealing from the poor and enriching oneself in the process?
Is there wisdom in plundering a nation’s wealth while millions languish in poverty?
How can anyone genuinely claim to be clever when their criminal activities directly result in the collapse of social services, the disappearance of basic service delivery, and the deepening impoverishment of millions of fellow citizens?
If hospitals have no medicines, no functional equipment, and no capacity to save lives because resources have been diverted into private pockets, is that cleverness?
If schools are left to rot, with children learning under trees, without books, without modern science laboratories, and without any meaningful preparation for the future because money was looted by a handful of so-called businesspeople, is that cleverness?
Can we describe as clever the wickedness that leads to the needless deaths of thousands who cannot access healthcare, and the destruction of entire generations who are denied education?
No, we cannot.
That is not cleverness.
That is pure evil and criminality, and it is something every morally upright Zimbabwean must condemn with rage.
Those who parade themselves as shrewd operators, who gloat about how they have outsmarted everyone else, are in fact exposing their own emptiness.
They are not clever, they are wicked.
They are not strategic, they are selfish.
They are not role models, they are parasites.
Their actions reveal the ugliest form of greed—a greed that does not care about the tears of a mother who has to bury her child because there were no cancer machines in the hospital; a greed that is not bothered by the despair of a father who cannot send his child to school because the education system has been stripped of resources; a greed that laughs in the face of a population struggling with water shortages, broken roads, collapsing power supply, and unending poverty.
I remember my own life when I was struggling with alcohol.
At that time, my mind was consumed with finding the next drink.
I would do anything to get money for alcohol, even if it meant duping others or stealing from my own mother.
In those moments, I thought I was being clever.
I thought I was outsmarting the world by getting what I wanted at any cost.
Yet, was I truly clever when I left my mother without money that she had carefully budgeted for household use, leaving the family hungry and sometimes without electricity?
Was I being clever when I drove my own mother to tears through my selfishness and destructive ways?
Of course not.
I was not clever—I was evil.
My behaviour was destructive, not only to me but to those I claimed to love.
Real cleverness came when I finally saw the errors of my ways and turned my life around.
Real cleverness was not in manipulating, cheating, or stealing, but in making the decision to change.
It was when I stopped drinking, turned to Jesus Christ, and became a new creation.
It was when I stopped being a liability and instead became an asset to my mother and to those around me.
Real cleverness was when I started adding value to the lives of others, uplifting those close to me, and becoming a source of joy and support.
That was cleverness—not the crooked and wicked schemes of my past.
In the same way, those who believe they are clever because they can loot billions from state coffers are gravely mistaken.
Cleverness is not found in amassing luxury cars, foreign mansions, or fat offshore bank accounts at the expense of a nation’s wellbeing.
Cleverness is not found in paying bribes to secure tenders, in inflating contracts, or in siphoning money meant for the poor.
True cleverness is in using business acumen to innovate, to create sustainable enterprises, to provide real employment, and to build industries that develop the country.
It is in paying taxes that strengthen national institutions, in ensuring that contracts are earned fairly through legal procedures, and in using wealth to build—not to destroy.
If Zimbabwe had more entrepreneurs with genuine cleverness, we would be seeing a very different country.
We would have investors establishing industries that add value to our natural resources, rather than carting away raw materials for a song.
We would have entrepreneurs who take pride in producing goods that are exported and earn foreign currency, creating wealth not only for themselves but for the nation.
We would have business leaders who use their success to uplift entire communities, to fund schools and hospitals, to build roads and infrastructure, and to mentor the next generation of innovators.
That is the kind of cleverness that builds nations and transforms lives.
The tragedy of Zimbabwe today is that too many people believe the lie that stealing is cleverness.
They think exploiting their proximity to political power makes them smart.
They mistake criminality for genius.
They confuse theft with success.
In reality, they are neither clever nor successful—they are destroyers, vandals of the nation’s future.
And just as I once discovered in my own journey, the day will come when the consequences of their actions will catch up with them.
History does not look kindly upon looters and plunderers.
The wealth they boast of today will one day be remembered as blood money, soaked in the suffering of millions of innocent Zimbabweans.
True cleverness is not in how much one can steal, but in how much one can create.
It is not in how much one can destroy, but in how much one can build.
It is not in how much one can take, but in how much one can give.
Until these Zvigananda understand that, they will remain nothing but criminals masquerading as businessmen, evil men who mistake wickedness for intelligence.
Zimbabwe deserves better.
Our people deserve leaders and entrepreneurs who are genuinely clever—clever enough to build a nation, not clever only in the art of destroying it.
TENDAI RUBEN MBOFANA - THE UN-OPPRESSED MIND! 