Home Scrutator Hei Ma-apara-kobo…what a year it has been!!!

Hei Ma-apara-kobo…what a year it has been!!!

by Lesotho Times
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My fellow Basotho, it’s has been a rough year. Allow me to go and rest. I am truly tired. It has been a very rough but also exhilarating year. Exhilarating not on account of any improvement in our economic condition as Basotho. Most of us remain a byword for penury. But exhilarating on account of our many clowns – masquerading as politicians – who always do their best to keep us entertained even during the darkest and most difficult of times – with their perennial kindergarten pranks. Our politicians are indeed good for a laugh. If we were a modern, industrial country, we perhaps would no longer be coping with the influx of inward migration to our shores. Many people would want to live in a place where they are guaranteed all year-round laughter.  It’s has been scientifically proven that persistent laughter is the secret to a long life. That explains why the shortest life expectancies are in countries ravaged by conflict. Of course, it is never a laughing matter when clownish politicians destroy a country as we have seen here. But what else can we do. I have given up on us experiencing any progress till we get an energetic leader with a clear plan to take us forward. All I can do now is laugh in place of complaining about my poverty. In any event, who do you complain to and expect to get listened to?

So, I would rather focus on the humorous side of our politics notwithstanding their debilitating nature. We have more political charlatans per capita than any other nation. If political clowning equated to economic development, we would have long eclipsed Dubai and Singapore. We would be enjoying the highest per capita income rates in the world.

How else can anyone explain the perennial clowning we have been witnessing in the once mighty All Basotho Convention (ABC), a party that some of us nearly died for at some stage? A party that once represented our hopes for a prosperous future?  It is indeed easy to try and blame all the chaos obtaining in the ABC on Lady Dee’s destructive effect. But that is too simplistic. What we have seen hitherto confirms beyond reasonable doubt that the ABC lacks grown men. If its leaders were grown men, they would have long realised and ended their destructive ways. But alas, they won’t. The ABC is now a kindergarten of 82 plus olds. It is ironically the oldest kindergarten on earth.  How sad.

I cannot help but end the year by thanking all those who have stood in unison to oppose the Motsoahae faction’s silly government of national unity (GNU) project. As the highly articulate Prof Mahao has orated, this whole GNU claptrap is a whimsical project of a faction by a faction and for a faction. What we need is a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

I cannot help but wonder? Why is the GNU a tool of choice for politicians who find themselves in one sort of trouble or another? When Mothetjoa Metsing lost his position and fabulous perks as deputy prime minister in the wake of the June 2017 snap elections, he immediately became an apostle of a GNU. Why did the GNU idea never cross his mind when he was still enjoying all the trapping of power including those ever-irritating blue lights?

Why has Ntate Motsoahae, who then fiercely opposed Ntate Metsing’s exhortations for a GNU, now become its most ardent proponent? It’s all obvious. When a Lesotho politician wants to gain a political advantage for themselves and their faction, then a GNU becomes their tool of choice. It’s never about the people.  I recently warned Ntate Montoeli Masoetsa, the ABC spokesman, against lying and if he intends to be taken seriously as the mouthpiece of a key, albeit dying political party. I worry that he has now taken his political flimflam to the very highest of levels. Ntate Masoetsa’s hatred of Ntate Moeketsi Majoro is well documented. But instead of admitting that his and other Motsoahae faction alumni’s project for a GNU to topple Ntate Majoro is dead in the water – because there are no takers for it – Ntate Masoetsa sees no shame in brazenly lying that it was never his faction’s idea in the first place. Really Ntate Masoetsa? So, if the GNU was not your faction’s idea, whose idea was it? Was it Jesus Christ’s? Was it Vladimir Putin’s? Do you take us for Siberian fools Ntate Masoetsa? We are not fools? Of course, some Basotho are confined in the mountains to fend for those hairy creatures and ensure that we continue exporting mohair? But the rest of us are solidly educated and bright.  Please learn to start telling the truth. You have shelved the GNU project because no rational Mosotho believes in it – except members of your faction. If you maintain this high rate of lying Ntate Masoetsa, I am going to campaign for your recall as party spokesman and your replacement with Thabo Thakalekoala. At least he is more beautiful than you.  Seeing his handsome face as spokesman of the party in every edition of the newspapers is going to enhance the entertainment value of your ABC, probably the only reason to justify its continued existence.

I have given up any hope that the economic condition of Basotho will ever improve unless we get a good well -schooled leader with a clear plan and vision to take us out of the precipice and deliver us to the promised land. So, I would rather concentrate on the lighter side of our politics to produce the required amounts of laughter required to enhance my longevity.

As I write this, I see bontate Mahao, Hlaele, Masoetsa, Rapapa and others on chaperoning themselves to every nook and cranny of Lesotho condemning Ntate Motsoahae as a spent force holding the country back. I see Ntate Motsoahae himself at that H’abia rally chastising his son in law – Hlaele – for not being handsome enough for his pretty daughter. How times change?  Who would have predicted that a short while afterwards, Ntate Hlaele would be firmly back in his father in law’s arms – enjoying rooibos tea with him and Lady Dee – at Makhoakhoeng, where he had been exiled from during his flirtations with Mahao?

If a week is a long time in politics, a month is eternity in Lesotho’s politics. Things change quick and fast.

What should we therefore expect in the new year? Ntate Hlaele defecting to the BAP? Or Tefo Mapesela demanding that a new position of Deputy King be created for him?  Whatever the case, our politicians never disappoint in terms of their entertainment value. Of course, there shall come a time when Basotho will say enough is enough. The circus must end. We can no longer cope with our squalor. We need good governance and competent politicians with a vision. Until that time arrives, I have no option but to keep chuckling. It doesn’t help complaining.

I will keep this one short. I have been punching the keyboard for most of the year without a rest. I don’t have any money to embark on another Seychelles excursion as I did last year. I cannot dissipate all my herd of boer goats. I will be at home this festive period. Any donations of those liver ruining liquids would be welcome. I am taking a break but I am dead broke.  See you sometime in January when the Motsoahae faction resumes its lunatic bid to oust Majoro. We are guaranteed of more fun in 2021.   Never expect the ABC to disappoint.

 

Ache!!!

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