Muckraker

The rascal from NUL

Published

6 years ago

October 14, 2017

The Post

WHEN it comes to human idiocy nothing much has changed since the last century. There is no limit to human stupidity.

Albert Einstein saw it a long time ago.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe,” he said.

The world is still overflowing with fools. It’s a pity that civilization has insisted on us sharing precious oxygen and water with them.

They might just be the ones aiding global warming with their toxic gases.

We just have to suffer silently hoping one day there will be a Rapture to steal them from us.

But once in a while there comes an extraordinary moron whose vim just stuns you. You are left spinning as you wonder if the world still makes fools this special.

In the Roma valley lives a little scoundrel called Thato Ponya, a foulmouthed student leader who sometimes forgets to take his daily dosage of those little white things.

Ponya is a vintage fool we must all seek to add to our collection for posterity.

There will come a time when we will auction such ilk for good money. Remember future generations will need a specimen of what we, their forefathers, had to tolerate.

How the students at the National University of Lesotho (NUL) would have such a boob for a leader is mindboggling.

You can ponder it until pigs learn the mokhibo dance. The joke is on the people he leads and not himself.

That Ponya is an unmitigated nincompoop has never been in dispute. That debate was settled eons ago. What has been unclear is how far he can sink down a gutter and wallow in it like a piglet in its own manure.

Eureka! Ponya solved that puzzle for us a few days ago when he went berserk on Facebook.

Until then Muckraker had been praying and fasting for his redemption. But after that vile post she will now gallop to the nearest confessional, hands over head.

“Father, forgive me for I have failed the human race,” she will say.

“How so my daughter?” the father will retort in a sombre voice.

“I was naïve to think Ponya can be saved from himself. I wasted prayers on him when there are so many fools who needed them,” Muckraker will say.

“Worry not my daughter for you are not alone in your sorrow. Ponya is a special case. Even I have washed off my hands,” the father will say as tears well down his cheeks.

A few days ago Muckraker was perambulating Facebook when she stumbled upon Ponya’s attack on Nthakoana Ngatane, a decent journalist who recently skipped the country after some political zealots threatened her with grievous bodily harm or something worse.

Ngatane had barely caught her breath when Ponya unleashed his poison on her.

“Selimo Thabane I want you to do a favour to this woman they call Nthakoana Ngatane, solicit sex from her and if she refuses, rape her, I will help you,” he said.

“It seems she wants to have sex. She is lying (because) what drove her from the country is that she wants to share a pillow with Ralebetlela wherever he is. Yes we don’t want that woman in this country if she think (sic) she can mislead the world when she is actually chasing Ralebetlela’s d*** wherever it is.”

And just to make sure there is no case of mistaken identity he added: “I am the one saying this”.

Muckraker was momentarily dazzled after reading that missive. It was a plea to another man to commit a heinous crime of rape. An offer to assist in the crime.

To Ponya it was not enough that Nthakoana was down. She just had to be bludgeoned with a male organ and Ponya wasn’t going to standby as that happened. He wanted to partake.

Yet even that was not going to be enough because according to Ponya, Nthakoana also deserved to be pelted with rabid insults and scurrilous allegations.

His point was not just that Nthakoana had manufactured the threats against her but that she was also pursuing sexual pleasures.

Yours will be a heart of stone if that Ponya’s post doesn’t move some veins in your heart. But the writer himself must have a heart of iron to sustain that vicious attack using such gory imageries.

Ponya was just about to bumjive over his post when Matlosa tried to grab his ears. He told the rascal to behave himself.

But by this time Ponya was way down the gutter.

He fired back with another post attempting to justify his initial mischief.

“A man or a woman can rape another. Why did you decide to use the last one? Isn’t it because you are not clean in the ears?”

These, by the way, were not the words of a man trying to untangle himself from the web of his own words. He was unrepentant in his terrible ways and undeterred by the loud echo of his words. Unmoved by calls to slow down on his insolence.

He was parading his tomfoolery for all to see.

Muckraker knew this was not going to end well. And indeed, a few days later the boy was scrambling down his high horse and gobbling a humble pie.

It is not clear who dragged him back to his senses, kicking and screaming.

Yet even in his moment of ‘humility’ you could see this is a man who does not appreciate the damage of his words. The apology sounded insincere.

In it he dragged the ABC as if the party had been injured by his initial post. Suddenly Ponya was telling us that he is an ABC member but he had made the attacks in his personal capacity.

But we knew that already. No one has ever alleged that he was speaking for the ABC. This was Ponya speaking for Ponya. It was Ponya at his garrulous best. This is not something he can blame on youthful exuberance.

A lawyer would say: He is an adult male Mosotho still attempting to have his mind panel beaten at NUL.

Muckraker has never thought that tertiary education should refine a person.

Many have been to NUL but still remain raw. Still it is not unreasonable to expect that there must be some semblance of order in the head when you spend years listening to professors and hobnobbing with educated people.

You will be ungrateful to remain uncouth after this poor government spends tens of thousands of maloti to smoothen your rough edges with some education.

Its gulling that thus far and tens of thousands of maloti later Ponya remains a rascal.

We already have a crisis with rape in Lesotho. The last thing we need is some college prefect running his unclean mouth about it.

Muckraker is aware that Ponya likes to brawl so she will end this one with a frank challenge.

Listen careful Imby (shortcut for imbecile) put your bums down before Muckraker takes you to the cleaners.

She is a thug. If that gets your goat please name the place and time for a meeting.

Muckraker

Tongue matters

Published

3 weeks ago

May 16, 2023

The Post

It was not by default that some of the government’s paid and unpaid sycophants were attacking the principal secretaries who were fighting their termination.

One local newspaper which bootlicks with gusto was peeved that the principal secretaries were not giving up on their fight (We were not told why that was such an evil thing).

Their crime, as the newspaper insinuated, was that they were trying to delay the case so that they continue to earn their salaries and benefits. This tactic, the newspaper bellowed, was meant to sabotage the government. Really?

Such an inane argument would be laughable were it not tragic.

It was obvious the principal secretaries wanted to tie Uncle Sam in complex legal knots. That is how it works. No need for complicated mathematical models or throwing bones to know this would happen.

Not much acumen needed either. Just simple history and common sense. The history being that it has happened before with consistency. The common sense being that people don’t like being pushed out of their jobs for whatever reason.

It doesn’t matter how and why you do it. How people defend their bread in court is their business. In this case, the principal secretaries were not being terminated because they had done anything wrong. Wanting to hire your own people to implement your policy is no reason enough to callously fire anyone.

But somehow, Uncle Sam and his ministers thought they were a special breed that could walk into government and spank people out of their jobs. Now that the government has settled, you can be sure the same minions will pretend it was a result of the government’s brilliance or benevolence.

The truth is that the government should never have wasted its money and energy fighting the principal secretaries.

Nka! Ichuuuuuuuuuuu!

muckraker.post@gmail.com

Muckraker

The fear of whites

Published

3 weeks ago

May 16, 2023

The Post

Muckraker has no racist bone in her. So she will say what she wants without the fear of being called a racist. Follow the logic slowly to avoid jumping to conclusions.

The next time the government is fighting a court battle with anyone you should watch the legal representatives carefully. You can be sure that some white fella will be representing the government.

It’s as if there is always a white messiah waiting to save our government from its legal troubles. They like importing them from across Mohokare. Even if they choose to use a ‘local’ lawyer you can be sure that they are white. The issue of experience doesn’t matter.

They just have to be white. This has been the pattern over the years and it’s likely to continue as long as our government suffers from this incessant bout of inferiority complex. Everything else can be reserved for Basotho but not the provision of legal services to the government.

Here is where it gets excruciatingly painful. The same people who import white lawyers to represent the government will gladly hire local lawyers when they have personal legal problems. This is to say they trust local lawyers to solve their problems but don’t believe they are good enough to represent the government.

But don’t be confused because there is method to this sickening habit. The only reason they don’t hire local lawyers for the government is because there is lots of money to be made.

They don’t want the paws of black local lawyers anywhere near the government’s money. As far as they are concerned, Basotho lawyers are only good enough to represent thieves, cattle rustlers and those divorcing. Lesotho’s senior lawyers are King’s Counsels in their villages and not to the government.

The government’s legal matters are reserved for imported white lawyers. And let’s not pretend this is not about skin colour. No! If it wasn’t about that, the government would have hired a few black South Africans over the years.

Muckraker has to mention this because she saw this obsession with white lawyers again recently. The government was represented by a white advocate in its legal fight with the sixteen principal secretaries. For some reason, there was no local lawyer to handle a simple labour case between the government and its employees. That lawyer was imported to help the government fight what was clearly an unwinnable case.

A simple issue that could have been resolved over motoho and cool heads was now involving some imported legal mind behind paid by the bucket. You cannot make this up. When it eventually came back to its senses, the government did precisely what it should have done from the onset: negotiate. It took a meeting of a few hours for the Minister of Labour to seal a deal with the principal secretaries.

And where was the government’s white lawyer? Well, Muckraker is not sure but suspects he was preparing his hefty invoice. The government had wasted Basotho’s money fighting Basotho using some imported lawyer. Yet it says Basotho pele! Nonsense!

Nka! Ichuuuuuuuuuuu!

muckraker.post@gmail.com

Muckraker

Shaking the shack

Published

2 months ago

April 18, 2023

The Post

SOME years ago Muckraker stumbled on the fascinating story of an Indian man who always drove his car in reverse.

By 2014 Harpeet Devi had been cruising in reverse on India’s roads for eleven years.

It started in 2003 when he could not afford to fix his Fiat’s gearbox. So he just started reversing to his destination. By the time he fixed the car Devi could not stop driving in reverse. He was so comfortable that he could drive at 80km/h backwards on the highways. It was now a habit he could not unlearn. Hooked on to the anomaly.

What mattered was he was going places, loved it and it worked.

Muckraker was reminded of that bizarre story when she heard of some people jostling for leadership positions in the LCD. You read that right: there are still people dreaming of leading the LCD and they are prepared to clobber each other to get to the top of that anthill of a political party. This misplaced ambition and delusion would be funny were it not tragic.

Those who made it into the LCD national executive committee days ago are inheriting a car that only drives in reverse. You don’t need basic arithmetic skills to see that the LCD has been driving in reverse for the past 10 years.

The only difference with Devi, the Indian chap, is that the LCD doesn’t have a destination and has fooled itself into thinking that it’s going forward.

It’s hurtling to its grave in reverse but those who claim to be leading it believe they are on the verge of some revival. They are not looking at the numbers because they are too scared of reality.

Instead, they will pretend that the past decade of disasters is just a passing phase and those who have jumped the sinking ship are either sell-outs or just lack vision.

Of course, the only vision that the LCD leaders have is that which is in the view mirror.

Little wonder they are quick to remember past success when faced with calamities of now. They never shut up about Ntsu Mokhehle. Ask them what they achieved and they will point to free primary education. And that’s it.

You would think Lesotho’s economy was firing on all cylinders under their leadership. You would be forgiven for thinking there was no corruption and inept management in their administration.

You know a party is caput when its leadership spends more time musing about history instead of plotting the future.

But you have to understand why the LCD is fixated with history. When you have no future all you have is history. The LCD is not a dying party. To describe it as such is to assume there is something left to resuscitate. The LCD is dead. Gone!

Those still in it are either desperate or delusional or both. Those who claim to be leading it are certified political failures and they know it. There is no leadership role for them beyond that dead donkey.

Only the LCD can tolerate their mediocrity.

Nka! Ichuuuuuuuuuuu!

muckraker.post@gmail.com