The Day Power Took Flight and Left the People Walking

By Shelton Muchena
The helicopter arrived before the words did.
Dust rose first, thick, choking and familiar. Then the thunder of blades sliced the sky with the confidence of power that does not ask permission. People shielded their eyes and stood anyway. They always stood. Some from loyalty, some from habit, some from hope, and many because standing had become safer than sitting.
It was ZANU-PF National Cell Day, a date the ruling party marks as sacred. A day when senior leaders leave the comfort of the ZANU-PF headquarters and return, symbolically, to their political cells. The cells are the smallest units of the party, they say, the true foundation of power, the heartbeat of its grassroots.
When President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa stepped down from the helicopter, the sun caught his shoes, polished and unbothered by the earth beneath them. He waved once, not extravagantly, but enough to be seen. The crowd roared, a sound woven from applause, laughter, resentment and resignation.
He did not waste time.
“My people,” he began, his voice steady and measured, sharp enough to cut through the heat. “I came by helicopter.”
He paused. A ripple of laughter moved through the crowd, hesitant at first, then louder, as if laughter could soften the truth.
“And I will leave by helicopter.”
Another pause came, heavier than the first.
“But you,” he said, scanning faces baked by sun and struggle, “you will walk home.”
The laughter died.
No insult followed. No apology either. Only silence, raw and unprotected. The kind that does not flatter. The kind that exposes.
On a day meant to celebrate humility, beginnings and closeness to the grassroots, the distance between power and the people suddenly stood naked in the open air.
“You will walk,” he continued, “because this is your land. You walk on it every day. You know its cracks, its dust, its distance. I fly above it, but you live in it.”
Some shifted uncomfortably. Others nodded slowly. A few smiled, not because it was kind, but because it was honest in a way that cut too close to home.
“I will not lie to you,” he said. “Power lifts some people into the air. Responsibility keeps the rest on the ground. If you want helicopters, build runways. If you want roads, demand them. If you want change, walk towards it.”
Across the country that same day, ZANU-PF leaders returned to their cells, speaking of sacrifice, unity and origins. They spoke of the grassroots as the foundation of the party. Yet beneath the spinning blades of a helicopter, the grassroots were reminded not of their power, but of their position.
There were no promises of miracles. No slogans borrowed from past revolutions. No imported hope. Only truth, heavy, unapologetic and unmistakably Zimbabwean.
When the speech ended, the helicopter returned. Wind followed. Noise followed. Distance followed.
As it lifted into the sky, the people began to disperse slowly, quietly and thoughtfully.
They walked home.
Some angry.
Some inspired.
Some unchanged.
But all aware.
Because for the first time in a long while, a leader had not pretended that the distance between the air and the ground did not exist.
And truth, once spoken plainly, does not fly away with the helicopter. It walks with the people, step by step, long after the blades have disappeared from the sky.