By Margaret Kamba 

As we continue with the countdown to National Youth Day, ZANU PF Secretary General Cde Obert Mpofu has urged the youths to emulate yesterday's youths in order for them to be good leaders.

Zimbabwe's youths celebrate National Youth Day on 21 February under the theme "Positioning youth empowerment and development towards vision 2030."

Speaking during an interview, Cde Mpofu said it is imperative for today's young people to understand that it is yesterday's youths who sacrificed their lives to bring the independence they enjoy today. 

"There's a history on this, especially the day, the 21st of February, that the Party decided to celebrate as a youth day. It used to be called the 21st February Movement, which is the date when our founding father, the late Cde Robert Gabriel Mugabe, was born. This was to instill the kind of youth that the Party wants to mold. That of a disciplined youth. A patriotic youth. A loyal youth, which is what our generation espoused to," Cde Mpofu said.

"The entire life or earlier life of us who are in leadership today was a time of sacrifice as youths. This country was mostly fought for by the young people, the youths who are old people today. It was because of their discipline and their resolve to liberate the country that made them sacrifice for the emancipation of this country. That is why if you look at ZANU PF, our current President was incarcerated when he was a young man. He went to prison and was incarcerated because he had sacrificed for the independence of his motherland at an earlier age. 

"If you look at our Vice Presidents, they went to war when they were still young. Our National Chairman went there as a teenager, a young lady, a young girl, to liberate the country. I went there at the age of 16 to liberate our country."

Cde Mpofu said, "This date reminds us of what a patriotic youth should do to play a part in the development, uniting and protecting his motherland. So this is the kind of expectation that the Party would want to see behave.

"You have the day tomorrow, presided over by none other than His Excellency President E.D Mnangagwa, who will try and remind the current youths that it is not about making noise or sloganeering or thinking that you have achieved what the seniors did not achieve. It is because of the sacrifices of your seniors who were youths at the time that we are enjoying the fruit of that sacrifice today."

Cde Mpofu urged the youth to "remain focused, be disciplined, the leaders as well as followers for them to be good leaders of tomorrow. To us we rejoice and celebrate the day because it is a day that we could not celebrate at the time because the environment that existed at the time was hostile to blacks. The people that we talk about that died in Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania and Botswana, were not old people. They were youths. It was that kind of sacrifice that brought about the independence that we are now taking for granted.

"We appeal to our youths to emulate what the liberation youths did to liberate this country. Our youths are lucky to be running the Party when everything has been done. The schools, the universities and the colleges afforded them the opportunity to acquire skills which they are to use or utilize responsibly. Otherwise had it not been for the other youths of yesterday, they wouldn't have had these opportunities they are enjoying today. We want to call on them to remain vigilant and disciplined for them to be good leaders."