SOME politicians are just unmemorable. That is why you have forgotten former communications minister Khotso Letsatsi. He was an excuse of a minister and an overly haughty fellow who was gifted with a huge dose of arrogance.
You are instantly forgiven for consigning him to the trash bin of your memory.
Journalists will however remember him for his frolics in interviews.

He would harangue reporters who call him when he is having dinner or bathing. Yes he didn’t tolerate those who interfered with his papa ka lepu and basekomo.
With a shrieking voice Letsatsi would ask a journalist what time of the day it is.
Then as the journalist is fumbling for answers he would just go berserk, screaming about ethics and manners. Most scribes would instantly withdraw to their shells like tortoises and grovel as if they had sinned.

That is what Letsatsi thought would happen when he extended his monkey shines to Muckraker a few moons before his government expired.
Muckraker had called to clarify some issues for her esteemed column but Letsatsi hit the roof without provocation or, at least, a warning.
“What kind of a journalist calls a minister at this time? I have since left the office. You should understand that I am busy eating my dinner at the moment,” Letsatsi thundered as if Muckraker was asking about some hanky-panky business.

Muckraker let him have his brief moment of fame before she severely severed his wings with a hacksaw.
Muck: Minister, are you eating with your ears?
Letsatsi: Obviously not, but why are you asking such a silly question?

Muck: Well, you are refusing to listen because you are having dinner. I see no connection?
Letsatsi: I am only asking why you are calling when I am having dinner.
Muck: I heard that. Do I cook for you or live in your spare bedroom?

Letsatsi: That’s another silly question. What has that got to do with anything?
Muck: Well, I am wondering how I would know that you are eating if I didn’t cook for you and I don’t stay with you?
Letsatsi: But that is obvious because it’s at night.

Muck: Well, what is obvious is that you don’t know your job. When can we meet for some free orientation?
There was a long pause from Letsatsi before he dropped the call.

Muckraker thought Letsatsi would be on the path to rehabilitation after she chopped off his wings. And indeed the man seemed to mellow and rediscover his good manners in the weeks thereafter.
But a few months later Letsatsi returned to his snooty ways with gusto.
The first time Muckraker saw Letsatsi’s wings flapping again was when he was flying into a storm about Facebook and Whatsapp.

Stung by allegations on the social media platforms, Letsatsi had conjured a doubly daft idea to close Facebook and Whatsapp.
What got his goat was what he called fake rumours being flogged on social media by a cabal that wanted to sabotage the government.
It however did not take long for Letsatsi to come to ground with a thud after his plan collapsed.
It is not clear what wall he hit in his endevour.

He might have just come back to his senses or someone dragged him by the ears back to his senses, kicking and screaming. It could be that someone at Facebook and Whatsapp, flatly refused to indulge his tomfoolery before showing him his way back to sobriety.
With reality sinking in, he watched as his government was bludgeoned on social media by a mob of cyber thugs who have no time to pursue facts or logic.
Eventually his government crumbled under the weight of propaganda. Today they continue to grumble.

It is ironic that Letsatsi now wants to earn a living from anything that resembles media. His newspaper now pinches things from social media to construct stories.
Not that there is anything terrible about ogling the social media for news tips. It’s just that if someone had not slipped some ‘chill pills’ in his drink and told him to calm down Letsatsi would have closed social media in Lesotho.

The irony however does not end there. While Letsatsi was threatening to throttle social media his bosses were winking.
One of those who allowed him to entertain nefarious thoughts of closing Facebook and Whatsapp was DJ Waters, aka Mothetjoa Metsing, who was deputy prime minister.
There is no evidence to suggest that DJ Waters whispered some wise words into Letsatsi’s ears when he started waffling about closing social media.

You can thus imagine Muckraker’s horror when she received a Facebook friendship request from DJ Waters a few weeks ago. She hit the ‘Accept’ button to walk into DJ Waters’ zone.
DJ Waters was in his element as he sought to dig himself out of the morass of propaganda under which he was spectacularly buried by Uncle Tom, his supporters and his running dogs in the media. The same Facebook Letsatsi was in a stampede to muzzle is now DJ Water’s sanctuary.
DJ Waters is using the page to fight back at the ‘misinformation’ Uncle Tom and his cahoots have allegedly used to soil his name.
It doesn’t take a sophisticated mind to cut through this hypocrisy.

His plan, as it would seem, is to undo the damage one post at a time and hope people are reading his words.
The problem, though, is that he is cherry-picking the questions he wants to answer while pretending that the fat nasty enquiries are not being asked.
The result is that the man is talking to himself and a small battalion of bootlickers hoping that they will be perched near the feeding trough when Uncle Tom’s government kicks the bucket.
So as you read the posts you bump into some replies from talented praise singers who think flattery is the highway to DJ Waters’ heart.

Sadly, such tactics will not help their leader because they are not thrusting him on a wheelbarrow to redemption. DJ Waters needs tough love for him to repent.
Until that happens the man will not accept that he had a hand in the chaos that almost pushed this country over a cliff.
He will keep insisting that he is an innocent victim being persecuted.

The idea is never to accept any culpability and hope that history will be rewritten to turn villains into heroes and heroes into villains. He hopes time will pillage our memories of the sad chapters in which he was part of the writing and editing team.

Predictably, none of his Facebook friends have asked him if he regrets some of his decisions when he had power. Crucially, not one has asked him to read a bit about Karma.
Karma, as many might know, is a bitch. Many will remember how DJ Waters would laugh off Uncle Tom’s complaints when he was wallowing in poverty.
As Uncle Tom languished in exile DJ Waters was having a blast as deputy prime minister.

When Uncle Tom said he was fleeing for his life DJ Waters said: Le balimo b’a tseba hore ’muso ona oa rōna o tšabang Molimo o keke oa bolaea esita le ntsintsi. E ka re le ’na ke le tjee ke tšaba ho hlaba le khōhō ena e pala. (Even the ancestors know that this God-fearing government of ours won’t hurt even a fly. I for one have never cut a chicken).
Of course people were being killed, abducted and tortured.

Uncle Tom said he missed home and DJ Waters said: Ha ho na le ho reng teke! Ho ’na mona. Haeba a n’a batla hotla hae, e k’e b’e le khale a itse batha! Mona. Ho pepenene hore o iketse phomolong, o ja pooqo-ka-hlanaka mono (I am not confused. If he wanted to come home he should have been here by now. It is clear he is enjoying his holiday).
Today he is using Facebook to tell his followers how terrible it is to be living in a foreign land, away from family, relatives and countrymen.

When Uncle Tom appealed to SADC for help DJ Waters said: Le Ramaphosa oa tseba hore ’muso ona ke ona ’moulo o palamisang baetapele ba khutlelang hae (Ramaphosa knows this government is working like a mule to bring back those exiled leaders).

DJ Waters would neither hear nor see evil.
To DJ Waters those crying about misrule were bohola sa ntja e amohuoe lesapo (‘barking dogs bitter that they had been kicked off a bone).
Ha ke bonolo ke thupula. Ba reng ke khoaetse mabotho ke masea-qheme a nchebang ka le molèka feela ha ke khaba (I am as soft as wool and as cool as a cucumber. Those who say the army is under my bums are traitorous souls that don’t know goodness when they see it).

The point here is that DJ Waters’ Facebook page will not help him in his repentance or us in understanding what went wrong.
All we hear is DJ Waters saying is: Ha kea phela mehleng ea Jesu e leng hore nke ke ka bua ka bohalaleli ba hae. Ke phela mehleng ena ’me kea tseba hore pelong ho ’na ke mosoeu toa! Joaloka lehloa holim’a Thabana-Ntlenyana. Nka ’na ka ba mabatha mona le mane feela le tsebe hore ke ’na tjaka tlhoka-koli eo e leng khale le e letetse. Ke ’na enoa. (I didn’t live in Jesus time so I cannot speak about his piousness. I am living today and I know that my heart is as pure as the snow atop Thabana-Ntlenyana. Yes, I don’t sin here and there but people should know that I am the perfect one they have been waiting for. I am the one.)

He is sure walking down the garden path alone. Alone in the wilderness.