An Acumen Media Report 4th September 2020 (Seven Days)
Here’s #TonyasTakeOut
There is a beautiful Afrikaans expression “die poppe gaan dans”, literally translated it means the dolls are going to stand up and dance. It is an expression that means there are big and dramatic movements that will make even the inanimate objects come to life. I hope I did the expression justice because my word did the #poppeDans this week.
The #ANCNEC, the subject of this week’s case study at Acumen Media. Over 157k items analysed showed that the President came up on top. Just before the NEC #TonyYengeni stated that the President should step down, and our hearts stopped, you see we knew deep down that #Ramaphosa wasn’t the real enemy. A word on #tonyYengeni, how dare he? The man who was found guilty of fraud and corruption and tends to drive around drunk is the last person the nation wants to take advice from, but other voices joined him too including #uBaba.
Then President of the ANC stood up and labelled his own party as #AccusedNumberOne and the dolls rose with him. Our President is back everyone, and it appears he was playing a very clever game of chess. He threw the shade of a baobab tree over his own party and particularly #jacobZuma’s very public (private) letter. #Zuma was put in the naughty corner and with that the dance began. The President said that we should not be hiring people with criminal charges or records and now is the time for the broom to sweep clean. I’ve felt so patriotic this week as I read name after name come out of the newsrooms, the Auditor General said that the evidence was overwhelming in the #CoVidCorruption investigations and it was at this point it was affirmed that the President just gave everyone enough rope so that he doesn’t have to hang the tsotsis himself, they did it for him. That’s action.
#DDMabuza is one of those dolls that came to life, even the journalists asked where he had been. In case you forgot, he’s our deputy President and he know nothing about the #CovidCorruption. He has convenient amnesia this guy though, remember the land claims and the corruption of R25Billion, yip he is heavily implicated there, he also has been accused of paying bribes of up to R2.5m to cadres to do his dirty work. (Side note: R2.5m seems to be the rate card fee – we saw #Ndzeku conveniently forget he got R2,5bar for nothing too.)
The #ZondoCommission rose to the dancefloor as if it were the army behind the President’s words and annihilated #NomvulaMokonyane’s testimony, if you didn’t watch it, you were spared hours of spin and political deflection and many #IdontRemembers. It appears this woman forgot she received a birthday party with almost 200 guests for her 40th birthday, you see #Agrizzi said it was her 50th birthday (and hence her memory loss – the devil is in the detail). Hey Angelo, didn’t your mama tell you never refer to a woman’s age? Once she remembered the magnificent surprise event, she cannot recall, nor would she have asked (according to her testimony) who arranged and paid for such a grand gala dinner. You see guys, when someone throws you a surprise party with around 200 people, you don’t ask who threw it and you don’t thank them personally for the level of effort and expense that goes behind hosting that event, you simply stand up and say thank you to everyone and off you go. You don’t ask your (now deceased) husband, who incidentally had made sure you arrived at the venue for the surprise, if he knows who paid or organised the party, because if you are #Nomvula then you state under oath that it is possible that your husband didn’t even know about the surprise party he took you too? Yes, that is what she said, and yes you can shake your head. It gets worse, a business colleague of her husband dropped R2m on a deposit for an R3,3m Aston Martin for her 50th Birthday because they were “friends” and because (and she said this) her husband was about to score big from Eskom deal. More annoying than this drivel was the continued eye-rolls and arrogance this woman expressed for Advocate Notshe. These advocates are outstanding, the Lebanese would have come out of me a long time ago, but they are calm, consistent, and quietly ruthless.
Talking about unearthing the truth, if you prefer your words un-minced, follow #TitoMboweni he certainly is a man of the people, not sure about a man of the ANC as he slaughtered Zuma in a tweet that again got him into a lot of trouble, #ShineMyMinister. #BeLikeTito. Regardless of this onslaught #uBaba refused to appear before #StateCaptureInquiry (because remember it’s voluntary to be accountable) and he has seen his cronies get TKO’s in the room. His reasoning? He has those pesky 900 odd charges to deal with.
The entire #UIFManagement team was suspended due to #CovidCorruption. #Cosatu rose behind #Nehawu as the call for PPE’s is so loud that the whole country will grind to a halt if these two organisations do not get what is rightly theirs.
And then there’s our Opposition, the people we rely on to keep the ruling party in check. An Opposition that, a few years back, had the prize in sight and fell before the post because of one ego… #HelenZille. This week we saw the patchwork DA completely disintegrate. Yet again allegations of racism and a #WhiteBias plagued the DA (read Zille, because we all know that uGogo will just not let go), #Steenhuizen scrambled to counter the dramatic exit of #JohnMoodey. #JohnVsJohn (quaint) #Moodey dropped files like a bad temp and confirmed everything we already know; the DA are racist and #GodZille doesn’t care that the party that is meant to keep our government in check is disintegrating. I’ve never been a fan of the DA but we needed them. Don’t worry though, enter #HermanMashaba and #ActionSA (is that the name? After all the pomp and circumstance about the #NoNameBrand, I felt a little let down when he revealed the branding).
I won’t vote for Herman and here’s why. Firstly, have you heard him speak, he’s another Mmusi Maimane or any other DA leader you’ve heard in the past. He just finger points and takes the moral high ground. I despise it when people insult my intelligence and I for one, haven’t forgotten the billions of irregular expenditure on your watch as Joburg Mayor Mr Mashaba, nor the allegations of Prasa and I have especially not forgotten your role in the #Xenophobic attacks Sir. You call your party #ActionSA but you didn’t do anything. If you had built one school with your branding money or fixed one shelter you would win my respect, but right now you just sound like a regurgitated DA spokesperson with a shady past.
And then the lights went out. #Stage4 or #level4 #whatwhat, basically no lights #dololo power, in a country that is filled with sunshine (except on Spring day). We still rely on this ravenous, unaffordable, looted SEO we call Eskom. Come on South Africa, just look up, we don’t need Eskom! This time they said the problem is poor welding and bad weather. Just kick it to the curb guys, follow the sun.
#CityofCape Town silences the #Adhan (Muslim Call to Prayer), I would encourage #ChandreEllaurie to ask for the translation of the words and perhaps she may not be so angry, she may even pray. Long before I joined Islam, I always found the #Adhan to be a sound of beauty and peace, the fact that anyone would oppose having these beautiful sounds fill your dreams just shows why Cape Town is well #CapeTown.
#Polokwane is heading for #DayZero as the water dries up due to poor infrastructure and lack of rain water to the #EbenezerDam.
#FarmMurders was a big topic this week too as the couple in KZN were shot and killed. The media was filled with interviews and coverage on attacks that take place on farmland. This time, though, the message was right, it is not about numbers it is about the critical resource that is a farmer. There are only a few thousand in our country and without them we will not eat. Farmers are vulnerable because they live on land that is vast without close neighbourhoods to prevent crime, this is not a race war. To say that there is a specific focus on killing farmers in inaccurate, to say that a farmer’s death needs massive attention and “action” is true. On crime, I can’t write about the rape of a 15month old or the many women who were killed this week, I can’t because words don’t change anything unless they are backed by “action”, and there is nothing to see here folks just more statistics.
My most #2020Moment of this week was #Rakgadi. If you missed it #LebogangKhitsane (the guy who was known for ornate headstones) passed on and his funeral was this week. As people stood up and commemorated this man, and his wife (ex-wife can’t work it out) cried on stage. Lebogang’s sister, #Rakgadi, stood up and said what we would all like to say at funerals, the truth. She was unimpressed by the “crocodile tears” and stood on the podium and fired verbal shots at his wife for bringing a boyfriend to the house. Soon after that, bottles of #Valpre were thrown at the stage and hit her, from here on #Valpre is called the #RakgadiSilencer on social media. My colleague and I did laugh at how one is so diplomatic at funerals even if the person wasn’t very nice, we are always so diplomatic. No one says, Johnny’s dead and he was a first prize pig, we would say Johnny’s dead and he had great hair. There is no honesty like #Rakgadi. We shouldn’t laugh, but we did.
Probably the saddest story this week was the death of #ChadwickBoseman and we didn’t know that during the time of #BlackPanther he was battling cancer. True #BlackPanther – RIP
