Arrogance - “overbearing pride evidenced by a superior manner toward inferiors”

Ignorance - “the lack of knowledge or education”

Mugabe is a very well educated man - but he is arrogant to the point of it being sickening. He has the attitude that he is untouchable, can do no wrong, and he cannot be criticised.

An arrogance that frankly stinks of corruption, intimidation and oppression.

And his style of rule is contagious - as we see with his senior apologists and loyalists failing to see anything amiss with Mugabe’s rule.

His habit of withholding the truth, re-engineering the facts is legendary. His ability to exercise complete and total rule over the long suffering people of Zimbabwe is very well known.

Is it any surprise that an estimated one quarter of the population has seen fit to leave that country for greener pastures?

All we have to do is cast an eye over the state of affairs in the country - even leaving out the politics…

The people have not got adequate housing - made worse by Mugabe’s ill thought out Operation Murambatsvina in 2005 which saw an estimated 1,1 million people removed from their established homes and communities.

Health services are no longer affordable, and even if they were, there is a distinct lack of medications and qualified people to administer it.

Education - the one thing that Zimbabweans had to be proud of - has become a joke. Many schools which no longer function are the homes of bands of ZANU PF youth, who have little or no respect for the buildings - or, indeed, the institutions that they now call ‘home’.

Unemployment in Zimbabwe is a huge problem, running at about 95% - and family upon family have no bread winner in the family to sustain their lives. People are dying of hunger in their droves.

The financial market is no better. ZANU PF will point a finger at the MDC minister of finance, Tendai Biti, alleging that the current problems are in his hands, but they forget that this is a problem that he inherited from numerous bumbling and ineffectual finance ministers coming from the ranks of ZANU.

These are just a few of the problems which face Zimbabweans today, but Mugabe continues to live in disgusting opulence, brandishing his own form of arrogance upon the people - and the international community.

Barely a day goes by without him telling the world how great he and ZANU PF are, and how the woes in Zimbabwe are caused by ‘illegal economic sanctions’.

There was a time when Zimbabweans were the most literate in the region and we all had a very good education. But with the demise of the economy, very few people can now afford that education any more (even if it were available), and with Mugabe tightening the news base in that country, people live in ignorance.

Mugabe relies on the likes of The Herald, ZBC and ZTV (all ZANU PF mouthpieces) to relay the ‘news’ which is almost always of ZANU PF ’successes’ - whilst he tells the world that foreign newspapers and radio station are attempting to foment regime change.

He relies on the ignorance of the people - a trait caused by his own hazardous rule - to keep the ZANU PF ship steady.

Little does he realise that his ZANU PF ship has sprung an irreparable leak and slowly, but surely, it is sinking - and when it does, I sincerely hope that it sinks too deep to be reclaimed from the ocean floor.

Arrogance and ignorance - two weapons that Mugabe uses quite well to his own advantage...

Robb WJ Ellis The Bearded Man