View from the campaign trail: a messenger of God

Dr. Simba Makoni has been out and about; even holding road-side impromptu rallies with would be voters, while at the same time fighting tooth and nail to repudiate murmurs from his ‘detractors’ that he was a stooge. The incumbent, President Mugabe, has used state funds to criss-cross the country, urging the people to vote for him because ‘I brought you freedom.’

Of course, President Mugabe’s campaign has been timely boosted by Gov. Gono, who decided to launch the third phase of the agriculture mechanization scheme in the middle of the election season, which has seen the Mugabe Campaign donate heifers, computers, combine-harvesters etc at some of its rallies.

And Morgan Tsvangirai, on the other hand, has been buoyed by massive crowds that have come to his rallies, his campaign benefiting from the simmering anger within the electorate from ZANU-PF’s failed policies over the last two decades.

All is well. But wait a minute, there is something missing, where is Langton Towungana, the forth candidate running for the office of the president? Since Towungana emerged from the dark shadows and duly filed his papers when the nomination court sat on February 15, virtually nothing has been heard from the candidate, apart from a slew of interviews with news organizations.

Wherever he was, like many other prospective voters, I had many questions for him. Who was Towungana?  Why was he running for president of the land? Who funded his campaign? Why was he running now, not before in 2002?  What could people expect from President Towungana?

What I had heard of him in the media was not encouraging to begin with. A source purported that Towungana, rather than toiling dutifully on the campaign trail like his compatriots, actually spent his days curled up on a couch in domestic bliss. And, what featured on his campaign manifesto, as far as one could gather, was the message that he was a man of God. In order to find out for myself, to verify some of the wild claims that I had heard about the man, I went out on a journey to find him.

One lazy, hot Wednesday afternoon, after much searching, I found Langton Towungana at his modest home in Victoria Falls, on the edge of the national park with the same name as the falls. The sound of the thundering falls hung in the air like a white veil, barely suppressing the irritating din made by cicadas in the trees all around. Under an azure sky with scarcely a cloud in sight, it was yet another hot day, as the Zambezi Escarpment is renowned of during the farming season.

Brother Tafadzwa, one of the young staffers of the Towungana for President Campaign, took me behind the red brick six roomed house where I found Towungana himself. To my amazement, instead of being curled up on a couch, the presidential candidate was sleeping, bare-chested, on a green silk hammock in the cool of a shade thrown up by a luxuriant Mopani tree. It was hardly the image of a presidential candidate I had expected.

Waking up from his afternoon siesta, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands, the former primary school teacher apologized, saying: “I’m sorry, you found me unprepared.” I sensed that the man was angry that I had disturbed him from his sleep. He hastily retreated into his house, calling out to his wife Emilia to prepare some refreshments for me.  

“Why are you running for president?” I asked the burly, clean shaven, middle-aged and slightly muscled former teacher, while we ate biscuits Emilia had brought us, which we washed down with cool tankards of Fanta. We were sitting on easy reclining polystyrene white deck chairs and Towungana was now fully clothed, but his chest was half exposed because the khaki shirt he wore had its last three buttons open. He considered the question carefully, stroking his chin in deep thought.

“My sprits, the feeling deep inside of my heart told me to run,” Towungana said in all seriousness, adjusting his horn rimmed glasses. I started laughing, as I found his response comical, but Towungana quickly countered my skepticism, emphatically adding: “I’m answering God’s call to duty. God sent me. I want to tell all the people that I’m a messenger of God. My candidacy is completely rooted in scriptures but, alas unlike that of my opponents, is actually inspired by God omene.” As we went deeper into the interview, I realized slowly that Towungana had a disarming smile and in his company I felt at ease, although I detected a slight glint of fanatic zeal in his brown eyes. Was this the man who will take the suffering people to the Promised Land? I wondered.

“Let me get this clear. In short you are saying God told you to run for the highest office in the land? And for that, the people of Zimbabwe should vote for you?”

“That is correct. Let the people know that God is in overall command of my campaign. I’m merely a vessel who, when elected into office on March 29, will repair this country using the dictates of our Lord our father, the almighty being,” he answered, his eyes twinkling like those of a true prophet. Looking deep in his eyes, there was a certain overriding sincerity, an innocence in his conviction that I found persuasive. He truly believed in what he was saying.

“Your competitors, esp. those in the opposition, have charged that the electoral playing field is tipped against them on one hand, but in favor of Mugabe on the other hand. Do you share this widely held view?” A wily smile graced Towungana’s puffy round face. He rubbed his hands together and told me thus: “No, I don’t share that view. You see, understand that my candidacy is special, and owing to that fact, whatever devices Mugabe & the CIO have put in place will be rendered ineffective by the hand of God, the overseer of my campaign.”

“When all is said and done, you think you will win the election and become the president of Zimbabwe? What are your prospects of winning?”

“I’m assured of victory. No man can challenge God and win. Anybody who challenges me is in fact challenging God himself. The reason why my opponents, Tsvangirai, Makoni and Mugabe have shied away from criticizing me directly is that they know that I’m a messenger of God,” he declared, gesticulating with his hands like a preacher. Towungana, as I soon found out, was a natural orator, capable of delivering his message in simple yet understandable terms.

“With all due respect, Mr. Towungana, why do you sit in domestic bliss enjoying naps while all your opponents are out and about campaigning for votes? Why are you not campaigning?” Towungana burst out in a fit of laughter, finding my question bizarre and farcical. Before he answered the question, Emilia, carrying an infant on her back, came back and refilled our half empty tankards of orange juice.

“That is our eighth child,” he said, answering my unasked question. “Anyway, to get back to your question, there is no need for me to campaign. The Bible is the number one selling book in the world. It carries the message that I have, the message God has given me to deliver. Do the math. Who doesn’t own a bible in this country?”

“So, with ten days to go before Election Day, you opt to sit on your laurels, rather than campaign? Aren’t you afraid, that say Tsvangirai, with his well attended rallies will take the presidency from you, scuttling God’s plan in the process?”

“Precisely, what I’m saying is, there is no need for me to campaign because God is in overall command of my campaign. Besides,” he paused speaking and accepted a piece of paper Brother Tafadzwa handed to him. “Besides, you the media are one of the ways my message will get to the people. As you just saw, Brother Tafadzwa has just given me a message, the BBC wants to have an interview with me. Since I declared my candidature, more than forty news organizations have interviewed me, including you!”

He took a deep draught of his drink, and signed some papers his right hand man Brother Tafadzwa gave him. Then he said: “Have you ever asked yourself why, me an unknown, is among the known? This is God’s hand at play, I tell you. Tell the people of Zimbabwe that I am the genuine and only replica of the biblical Moses, the one they have been waiting for all these year. My role is to rescue them, the children of Israel from Egypt and take them to a distant shore, a land filled with milk and honey,” he said with finality, giggling with satisfaction. “As for Tsvangirai, let me tell you my friend. He is not a messenger of God, therefore there is no way he can steal the presidency from me. The presidency is not owed me, but is mine nekuti I’m on a mission, a mission completely inspired by God.”

“What message do you have for those who claim that your candidacy is a creation of ZANU-PF in collaboration with the CIO? These same people assert that your campaign, like that of Mugabe, is being funded by Gov. Gono?”

“That is utter rubbish. I’m nobody’s stooge. I’m a man of God with no affiliation to any political party or individual thereof,” he denied the allegations vehemently, traces of his mission school English coming out in his rising frustration. “Whoever is peddling those lies, will be struck by lighting,” he warned and traced a small cross with the thumb over the forehead, lips, and his breast while whispering the words “May Christ's words be in my mind, on my lips, and in my heart.”

“Who is funding your campaign, if it is true it is not Gov. Gono?”

“You must realize that I’m a successful businessman. Because of the grace of the Lord our God, who has showered his blessing upon me, I own a milling business at Jambezi Centre here in Victoria Falls. In addition, I give tours to tourists, ferrying them to different places around this resort town. This business empire is thriving, despite the decimation of the economy….

I left the Zambezi Escarpment feeling and believing that indeed Langton Towungana was a man sent by God to rescue the country from disaster. If former AK governor Mike Huckabee, carrying the message of God with little financial resources for campaigning threatened to eliminate McCain from the GOP nomination primaries, who is to say Towungana won’t be waltzing to State House come April 1^st?

Trymore MacVivo, author of Ill at ease, Crossing the border & I am king.
macvivo@alumni.grinnell.edu .

(This article is fictitious. It is political spoof. Believe it at your own risk.)