ZIMBABWE is now a sad story where youths have been robbed of a whole generation of prime time, the self-exiled director of the Dumiso Dabengwa Foundation Mthulisi Hanana has claimed. BY SILAS NKALA Hanana who skipped the country at the height of State-sponsored abductions and persecution of activists ahead of the abortive July 31 protests, said young people in the country had been subjected to poverty since independence. “Zimbabwe has succeeded in robbing many young people of their prime time and their potential has been destroyed, their dreams have been parked, and they hustle in the hope that one day Zimbabwe will change,” Hanana said in a statement. “Young people keep waiting on ‘Hope Street’ and they forget that they have no obligation to wait for Zimbabwe to change at the expense of their lives. At some intervals, it feels as if change is close and one is lulled into a false sense of security and hope.” Hanana criticised Zimbabwean youths for being timid and afraid of change. “We would rather believe that somehow change is near and leave our destinies in the hands of fate. I remember that when MDC was formed, many young people believed that change was nigh. We could see a new dawn. Many snubbed opportunities to go abroad and chose to wait for that change,” he said. The human rights activist said since the era of the late former President Robert Mugabe, young people hoped for change which never came. 'We calculated that once we are done with our first degrees, Mugabe would be dead and the country would be better, but 15 years later, Mugabe was not dead. The country was worse. Our calculations were based on hope and nothing else. Many lost opportunities waiting for Mugabe to die. “Even our professors with whom we shared a packet of maputi (snacks) as they walked from Mt Pleasant to Harare central business district, told us to be patient. However, our age mates who left Zimbabwe 15 years ago are now far in terms of life's achievements,” he said. Hanana alleged that President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s new dispensation was presiding over misgovernance, while the opposition was weak. “The biggest deception now is to think that the MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa will bring change. His political stamina lacks sting and ‘that thing’. Yet we keep hoping that change is near,” he said. “As young people if we are not careful we will rot in this grave while waiting for a ‘messiah’ to come and perform a Lazarus-like resurrection.”  Follow Silas on Twitter @silasnkala