It’s All About Trabablas in the Second Republic
By Cde Nhamo Taneta
President Ruka Chivende last week, through his cabinet, announced that the iconic Mbudzi Roundabout will be renamed Trabablas Interchange upon its completion.
Why Trabablas, you ask?
Well, Trabablas Dzokerai Mabhunu happens to be one of Ruka Chivende’s wartime monikers.
Yes, you heard that right our liberator-in-chief is immortalizing his nom de guerre in concrete, steel, and traffic jams.
They tell us it’s all in honor of his liberation war efforts.
But let’s not kid ourselves, this renaming spree is less about honoring history and more about ensuring Trabablas lives on forever.
Dictators never truly die, they live eternally in street names, airport billboards, and, apparently, roundabouts.
In just seven years, Trabablas has sprinted ahead of his predecessor, the late, great Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe, in the race to plaster his name across the map.
Mugabe may have given us the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport, but Trabablas is here to show us that his legacy towers above potholes and power outages.
The very same airport now boasts giant billboards of Ruka Chivende’s face, a constant reminder of the man we owe our delayed flights to.
Legacy, after all, must be visible even if hospitals are invisible and civil servants’ salaries are theoretical.
But let’s talk about real legacy building.
Trabablas is making sure his name eclipses liberation war heroes like Nikita Mangena, Josiah Tongogara, Dumiso Dabengwa, Herbert Chitepo, Jason Ziyaphapha Moyo and Lookout Masuku to name but a few.
It all began with the so called “non-coup” that was, in fact, a coup in 2017.
Enterprise Road was swiftly renamed Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa Road, signaling the dawn of a new era of self-promotion.
By 2018, the Second Republic allocated a cool half a million dollars not for critical needs like cancer treatment machines or public service salaries, but to erect monuments honoring liberation war heroes.
Naturally, Trabablas made the cut.
One ambitious project, the Trabablas Trail along the Masvingo railway line, was meant to celebrate his sabotage exploits during the colonial era.
Tragically, it suffered a stillbirth—perhaps the funding got rerouted to more urgent matters, like new billboards or luxury SUVs.
And now, after blowing a staggering US $88 million on the Mbudzi Interchange, a project drowning in allegations of corruption it’s only fitting that the interchange be christened Trabablas.
A legacy of dysfunction deserves a name to match.
At this rate, what’s next? Will Kariba Dam become the Trabablas Reservoir?
Will Victoria Falls be renamed Trabablas Falls? Great Zimbabwe? Trabablas Monument?
Why stop there?
Let’s rename the economy, too, it’s already in shambles, so Trabablasomics has a nice ring to it.
After all, if you can’t fix it, you might as well name it after yourself.
But don’t worry, comrades, it’s not all about Trabablas. Oh wait yes, it is.
