ONCE again the hope game has started. Our opposition parties have found another oasis of hope in an abundantly hopeless situation.

Hooray, Jacob Zuma, the King of Nkandla, will visit our little kingdom next week.

The opposition zealots think he will knock some sense into Size Two and his people. Their mouths are watering at the prospect of watching the beleaguered dancer dragging the man from Tsoelike, kicking and screaming, back to the table for yet another talk show with the opposition.

Muckraker wishes this would happen for the sake of progress in this wretched little place of ours.

Sadly, things don’t work that way in diplomacy. Zuma is the king of Nkandla not Lesotho, so he will not speak to Size Two like a boss but a colleague.

He will cajole rather than dictate. He will suggest, not instruct.

That’s not wishful thinking but the reality opposition leaders should accept pronto if they want to keep their blood below boiling point.

Of course Zuma will mention the security and political issues but he will not do so in the same way as a village teacher talks to a student. He will do so like a herd boy talking to another herd boy.

“You see, my brother, winter is coming so you need to sort out your hut and gather some firewood.”

“My brother I am unsettled by the way you looked at my black cow last week. I hope you are not harbouring sexual thoughts.”

That is how herd boys speak to each other: stern warnings wrapped in soft words that can be easily mistaken for pleading.

Size Two and Zuma are not herd boys but they were once before age, times, money, education and power washed them. The bit about education does not apply to Zuma who is proud of not having wasted his precious time listening to some pompous chalk-holding fellow masquerading as a giver of knowledge.

Time has passed since Size Two was clobbered by a molamo in a Tseolike veld but you still can see hints of the herd boy in him especially when he starts off loading insults on opponents (don’t believe him when he says the 2015 election mellowed him. His tongue is still itching to spank someone). He uses idioms as a tactic to leave room for him to interpret his way out of trouble. When you start walking towards him with clinched fists he can simply laugh and chide you for having stayed too long in town to understand the wise words from the village.

It is not known how much of Zuma’s mind remains in his herd boy days but there are clear signs it could be as much as 90 percent. You see it in the carefree way he goes about his business even when trouble is baying for his blood at the door. Zuma wouldn’t know a crisis even if it sat on his face. Nothing sticks on that oily one.

Guptagate, Nkandlagate, and rapegate have left him standing, apatheticlike a baboon whose fleas are being picked by another. Two leaders with the abrasiveness and endurance of herd boys will meet for a chat.

That is how you should look at it if you want to keep your sanity. Frankly, nothing much will come from that meeting, at least when it comes to breaking the impasse between the government and the opposition.

Here is some stress management advice: drink some water and watch the spectacle with the indifference of a cow to a goat in pastures.

It will be preposterous and naive for our politicians to think Zuma is coming to help fight their battles.

Zuma, by nature, fights for himself. He has been fighting for himself for years. It’s easy for a mere grade zero to rise to the summit of a liberation struggle army. It takes more than talent and luck for an illiterate man to lead Africa’s most powerful and prosperous country. Today he faces enemies who want to yank him out of power before his due date.

Yet he stands tall, unashamed by the ruination of his actions, unfazed by the howls of his countrymen and yowls of his political foes. Zuma fights for no one but himself. So he is likely to mention the political situation in the country as an afterthought. He will only do so after he has persuaded Size Two’s government to keep pushing the Highlands Water Project despite complaints from the youths about the lack of a power generation component.

It is when he is assured that our water will keep flowing into South Africa in the next few years that he will venture to mumble something about our political situation. The notion that Zuma has our interests and happiness at heart is a fallacy manufactured my myopic minds. Either that or it is just a self-deluding idea meant to help us endure the pain of being inconsequential as a country.

For all our pretence at being an independent state, South Africa sees us as nothing more than a huge dam.

They really don’t care what happens to Lesotho as long as its water keeps flowing into Gauteng. Where we seek peace for the sake of prosperity they seek peace for the sake of water.

That Lesotho has people and a government is an inconvenience to South Africa. Given a choice they would find us plots somewhere in Limpopo and turn Lesotho into one big dam. That is what this country is to South Africa: a bucket of water.

Muckraker has had it to the back teeth with this MMM thing. It is clear authorities have no clue to stop people from ‘investing’ in MMM. No amount of press conferences, workshops, billboards or adverts is going to stop people from investing in a scheme that gives him 30 percent in a month.

The mathematics is simple and the choice obvious. As the authorities shout their voices hoarse about the evils and dangers of MMM or any other Ponzi schemes people are walking to the nearest banking hall to ‘invest’.

Farmers are selling their livestock to put money in Ponzi schemes. Some are taking loans to play in Mavrodi’s scheme. And there is nothing the authorities can do about it.

You see, the problem with MMM is that you never know who is playing it. There is a possibility that even those at the central bank are playing the game.

The police can warn us about Ponzi schemes but they are most probably playing it at night. It’s not by mistake that not a single politician has said a word about MMM. Pastors and the so-called men of God are playing it. In short, everyone in this country is playing it.

After all it’s just a community of people helping each other.Kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk. Let this daughter of Motsoeneng laugh out loud. MMM will only end when it collapses on its own weight. Until then the authorities should stop wasting their breath on it.

They must allow people to play the game until they are bruised. In the meantime they should save some money because many will need sessions of counselling when the Ponzi scheme collapses with their monies. He who sits on a red hot stove shall surely rise.

On the upside though Muckraker feels MMM is teaching people to share.

Blessed is the hand that giveth, so says the scriptures. Muckraker had always doubted those words until MMM came.

Indeed those who donate money are being ‘blessed’ with 30 percent more. It’s a ‘marvellous’ way of bringing the Scriptures to life. Mmmmmmmm. People are giving money to strangers and they are being ‘blessed’.

All of which makes Muckraker wonder why Basotho find it difficult to help their starving and struggling relatives.

If you want to see how tight-fisted a Mosotho is ask him for a R5 to buy fatcakes. He will look at you with a disgusted face before telling you things about your mother.

Why he has no qualms ‘helping’ a stranger on MMM is because the generosity is instantly rewarded. If only this tomfoolery will last. Phew!

Nka! Ichuuuuuuuuuu!

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