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MUCKRAKER: JP’s bitter pill

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MUCKRAKER has been watching Teboho Mojapela (JP) making a spectacle of himself.
There was a time when the show was spectacular. You could chuckle your way through dreadful days just by reading what JP had to say. He had bite and wit. Oh, it was a show to behold.

But something awfully wrong happened along the way. Suddenly JP started getting vile. Instead of pinching he was plucking morsels of flesh.
He wasn’t tickling anymore. The laughter has turned into repugnance.
We have to cover our noses when he opens his mouth for what he says is stinking. Muckraker’s late grandmother used to say if you ululate at a fool bathing in the middle of the road you should not be shocked when he swallows the soap.

JP is not there yet but his behaviour now borders on madness. What causes this are twin diseases called bitterness and loss.
JP has both. He is bitter because he was used like a disposable nappy by the ABC. He finds it hard to believe that a party of people he thought were slow and desperate outwitted him.

When the party needed money for the campaign JP was there to deliver. He was the all-weather benefactor.
The Father Christmas who would sneak into the house on December 24 and leave wrapped goodies under the Christmas tree.
Hungry, the ABC gobbled every cent he flung its way.

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How could the party not take money it knew was coming from its members in the first place? There was a simple logic to the gusto with which the party swallowed JP’s cash. It is common knowledge to even rats in Ha Pita that town dwellers are the ABC’s most loyal supporters.
It is also well-known even to the herd boys in Mokhotlong that it is those people who have sustained JP’s moneylending business.
Through exorbitant interest rates that will shock even Shylock, that greedy fellow in The Merchant of Venice, JP has poked more holes into their already perforated pockets.

He sucked them dry. As their plight worsened, the people began to look for a political messiah. The ABC was the horse on which they were going to ride to the Promised Land. The problem though was that the horse called ABC was hungry. Political campaigns cost money and political parties are not businesses. So when JP came into the picture with his seemly unlimited resources the ABC embraced him. They kissed him as well.

JP opened his wallet with vigour and let out the moolla. Soon the party was bouncing with cash. The congress movement, even after stealing from the government, could not match the opulence.

There was never a question as to why the party was guzzling JP’s money because the rationale was clear. JP was giving back what he had ‘stolen’ from the ABC supporters with his eye-watering interest rates.

If the businessman had another agenda the people he was helping did not care. Now was the time for them to get something from JP, a man who takes, takes and takes until your pockets are empty and your head is spinning. Indeed there was no harm in getting something from a Shylock especially when it doesn’t come with an interest.

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The problem though is that JP did not see this as a donation. He was keeping meticulous records of every penny he gave to the party.
A scrupulous businessman he saw this as an investment.

He did not say what he wanted in return because he thought it was obvious one good deed deserves another.
After all, there is nothing for free in the world. It turns out that the ABC and JP were not on the same page. They were in Genesis while he was in Revelation.

That much became clear after the elections when the ABC started treating JP like a plague. Where he thought a cabinet position was being prepared for him the ABC people were looking for a bus under which to shove him. Where he thought the ABC people would lick his shoes, the party was finding ways to lock him out of the feeding trough.

To JP this was patently unjust but to the ABC it was simply politics. JP’s hope of being treated like a VVIP disappeared when Uncle Tom wedded Maiseah. There JP was, looking all important and thinking he was the third star of the show after the groom and the bride.
Then as the food was served JP found himself dipping a plastic spoon in a fomapaki. His humiliation had been completed. The VVIP stood for Very Very Irritated Person.

The gravamen of his complaint is that the ABC has been ungrateful. If Thabane could not give him a cabinet position then he could have at least pretended to treat him with some respect.

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Thabane gave him neither, hence the palpable anger he is exuding. We may never know how much JB assisted the ABC but what is clear is that the man feels cheated. To him this was an investment that has brought no dividend.

His fight back is to lash out at the party, Uncle Tom and his wife. He has now formed his own political party. Socialist Revolutionaries (SR), he calls it without smelling or seeing the irony of a Shylock leading a socialist movement. He will be leading socialist revolutionaries who are swimming in debt.
It would have been funny were it not so sad. I will make everyone a millionaire, he tells his adherents who cannot tell the toffee and tosh.

JP will continue to flirt with politics for as long as he is angry. There will however come a time when he will get bored. When that happens he will get back to what he knows best: making money from the poor. His zealots will go back to being his clients.

Lastly, Muckraker would like to warn colleagues in the media to go slow on bootlicking. It is not good for their health. The battalion of scribes who have entered the bootlicking business has exponentially grown in recent months. What has triggered this avalanche of bootlicking is not clear. It could be hunger or greed or just a propensity for sycophancy.

Still there is no rationale for the brownnosing we are witnessing in newsrooms. It is such a sorry sight watching once respected reporters and columnists stampeding each other to pummel politicians with superlatives.
Try this next time you feel like an urge to flatter a politician: take a deep breath, close your eyes and imagine how many other people are licking the same boot you are about to lick. Consider the hygiene of that endeavour. Disgusting!

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Jackals are hunting

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Cheeseman’s recording of the conversation might border on the criminal but that doesn’t matter to those who have been looking for a stick to spank Molelle.

They have been waiting for this moment and are seizing it with both hands.

You can hear the excitement in their voices as they discuss Molelle’s impending downfall. Knorx’s misery has triggered a collective orgasm.

Watch them now as they hunt in packs like jackals.

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Even those who sang Molelle’s praises a few weeks ago are queuing to lynch him.

We are masters at kicking those who have fallen from grace.

The Law Society of Lesotho has been startled from years of slumber to race out of its bed with a long sjambok in hand.

They have written a letter to Uncle Sam pretending to have discovered, through a “whistleblower”, that Molelle was appointed the DCEO boss without being admitted as a legal practitioner in Lesotho.

It’s unclear why they needed a ‘whistleblower’ to discover something in their records for years. Muckraker suspects they always knew but were either too timid to say or waiting for this moment.

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They are saying it now to give the impression that they sneaked in a kick when Molelle was being spanked out of office. It’s a desperate scramble for relevance.

By claiming that they didn’t know Molelle was appointed the DG without being admitted as a legal practitioner the law society is exposing itself as a proudly incompetent organisation.

That much is clear from their brazen admission that they needed a ‘whistleblower’ to whisper to them something on their notice board or drawer.

Muckraker is amused by the battalion pretending to be irritated by what Molelle’s mouth said about Bro Richard, Sister Majara and Uncle Sam. They are borrowing offence as if it’s them who were labelled idiots or satane.

Bro Richard, Sister Majara and Uncle Sam are capable of getting irritated on their own without prodding and instigation from self-hired mourners, chancers and bootlickers.

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Molelle himself knows what is supposed to happen in the next few days.

He can only extricate himself from this mess by proving that the audio clips were manufactured and his voice is either AI-generated or from someone who can expertly imitate him.

Nka! Ichuuuuuuuuuuu!

muckraker.post@gmail.com

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Pressing the Knorx Stereo

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As she listened to Mollele’s audio clips Muckraker could hear a man devoted to waffling his way to an abrupt end to his tenure as the DCEO boss.

Cheeseman only had to keep poking him with cunning instigations. It was as if Cheeseman knew which buttons to press for Knorx’s stereo to keep playing his songs. And he wasn’t using a remote control. He was right there pressing the brown Tempest. Muckraker is unsure if Cheeseman danced to the Knorx hits but is certain he enjoyed himself.

Press: “Satane”. Press: “Idiots”. Press: “This case”.

Press: “Oh, yes that case”. Press: “The DPP this and that”. Press: “Blah, blah, blah and blah”.

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Cheeseman was playing Knorx like DJ Boots on the decks.

At some point you hear that Cheeseman was no longer playing his favourite hits but requests from people who had given him a list of songs before he met Knorx.

Cheeseman’s motive for recording their conversation doesn’t matter now.

It matters now who got the audio clips, snitched and leaked. It all boils down to what he said and to whom he said it.

Molelle would still have been in trouble even if he had been heard saying those words while in his shower. He put himself in that position by allowing his mouth to go wild.

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He should have kept those thoughts locked in his mind until uttering them had no consequences for him. They are words you only mention as history: “Eish, I used to work with devils and idiots”.

Muckraker is not saying he should have never said those words now. Of course, he could have driven out of Maseru to find a mountain to tell those things.

If a molisana had secretly recorded his chat with the mountain, Knorx would have said what he tells his ancestors is his business. He could have also claimed he would have gone bonkers if he had not told someone or something about his bosses.

Many have a boss they believe to be a moron or evil. Yet they keep their mouth shut about such truths to keep the job and the peace. The smart ones know it is their job to cover up the idiocy of their bosses.

That is how they earn their keep and promotions. Otherwise, what is the point of an idiot boss keeping a smart employee who doesn’t know how to protect them from their idiocy?

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It is your job to protect your boss from his idiocy. And you have no business discussing your boss’ idiocy, especially with his enemies. Venture into such reckless discussions and you will be jobless with your smartness.

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The mouth

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WE start the year with a little story of the dangers of a reckless mouth. Muckraker will write it as if you are listening to your granny’s tsomo. The point of it all will be revealed before the kettle boils.

So here goes.

Some two centuries ago, Czar Nicholas I, the ruler of Russia, faced a rebellion from some renegades who demanded democracy and other things. Qoi!

The Czar reacted with a brutal crackdown that included the chopping of heads.

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Kondraty Ryleyev, one of the rebels, was caught and sentenced to death by hanging. On the day of his hanging, the trapdoor opened but the rope around Ryleyev’s neck broke.

In those days, a rope breaking during an execution was considered a miracle which compelled the authorities to pardon the convict and spare the convict’s life.

With rope broken Ryleyev, thinking he had been saved, stood up, looked at the crowd that had gathered to witness his execution and shouted: “You see, in Russia they don’t know how to do anything properly, even to make rope”. A messenger was sent to the Palace for the Czar to sign Ryleyev’s pardon.

The disappointed Czar was about to sign the pardon when he asked the messenger: “Did Ryleyev say anything about this miracle?”

“Sir, he said that in Russia they don’t even know how to make rope,” the messenger replied.

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“In that case let us prove the contrary,” said the Czar as he tore up the pardon.

Ryleyev was hanged the next day and the rope held tight until he kicked the bucket.

Muckraker read that story from Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power. The anecdote accompanies Law 4: “Always say less than necessary”.

Ryleyev would have lived to see another day if only he kept his tongue on a short leash.

Did Muckraker hear you say qoi?

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The story is not about what happened to a reckless mouth in Russia two centuries ago but what is happening to Knorx Molelle because of his mouth.

Muckraker’s grandfather used to say the three things that get a man in trouble are the mouth, the hands and the ‘member’. The hand does things to things and people. The mouth says things. And the ‘member’…we all know the David story. Molelle is a victim of his mouth.

Nka! Ichuuuuuuuuuuu!

muckraker.post@gmail.com

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