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EX-PM AND VIRTUE WERE INCOMPATIBLE

08/10/2018 19:54:00 Vusi Sibisi

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Owing to the national disability of sycophancy underpinned by hypocrisy, which has become definitive of emaSwati, that has been in display since the announcement of the passing on of the immediate former Prime Minister Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini, it has become impossible for one not to conclude that some people are convinced that sitting in or going to church makes them Christians.

I am struggling to come to terms with some of the people’s moral campuses and if they are in keeping and resonate with the saying about not speaking ill of the dead. It is not a rule of thumb to respect the dead merely because they are dead, especially the immediate former PM whose recycling in 2008 was premised on his sadistic affinity to the violence and brutality (makhundu) he visited on the people. Yes, some people obviously living in fantasy land and enemies of the truth have dared to associate the late with virtue. Well, they ought to tell that to the many families – at least those still surviving because a many others who were on the receiving end of his evil machinations are long gone – who have suffered immeasurably as a result.

I am struggling to find what virtues embodied the man because I do not know of any, save for handsomely rewarding the spineless loyalists he surrounded himself with who always did his bidding. For, as I see it, there has been systemic moral decay generally and in the political sphere when it comes to the governance of the Kingdom of eSwatini since he was first appointed PM in 1996. The rule of law crises that are part of his legacy are well documented albeit it is generally believed that the decay began with the November 28, 2002 statement in which uMlangeni made it crystal that the government would not respect some judgments of the courts.

Later on and after having been sacked via SMS, he was to explain his actions with the lightning arrester narrative in which he projected himself as the first and last line of defence of the Monarchy. Of course this narrative had multiple meanings then as it does now; that he set government on a collision course with the rule of law at the behest of and to protect the King or; that he was took the fall for the King or; was absolving himself from any wrong doing whatsoever while at the same time pointing to the direction of the King for everything that had gone wrong. You have your pick.

Yet in actual fact the late former PM triggered the rule of law crisis earlier on when he nonchalantly acted against a court order by ordering police to remove the then Clerk to Parliament, the late Ben Zwane – may his soul rest in eternal peace. The daylight rape of Lady Justice could not have been better depicted then than with that haunting graphic newspaper front page picture of Zwane, wielding a court order legitimising his position and presence in Parliament, sandwiched between two police officers dragging him out of Parliament building on the orders of the late former PM, who also doubled up as minister of police in the political hierarchy of the kingdom.

Not only did the late former PM break the law with his illegal and illegitimate instructions to the police but also coerced the police, whose primary role is to maintain law and order, to break the law by ignoring and disrespecting a legal and legitimate order of the court. Personally, I have no praises to sing to the late former PM because he had made it his mission to destroy me for standing toe-to-toe and refusing to be bullied by him. He was a fatally flawed human being who believed in his superiority over all others. I was at the receiving end of his ruthless and manipulative nature for having dared to be assertive to contradict him on issues, when he expected me to be a yes man and prostrate myself before him as all others he surrounded himself did to earn their upkeep.

In his fixation to deal with me, he destroyed other innocent people, my colleagues, when he caused the State newspaper I was editing to shut down. There is also a need to correct the flawed narrative that since Barnabas was the longest serving PM, he was better than anyone before him. If so, how do we explain the economic ruins, not to speak of moral bankruptcy, he has bequeathed to the next government and this nation. This man has cost this country more than anyone can imagine. To protect his pecuniary interests when mobile telephony was introduced in this country in 1998, he ensured that an illegitimate and illegal joint venture agreement restricted the operations and growth of Eswatini Post and Telecommunications Corporation (EPTC).

And in the year 2000, he personally derailed a lucrative deal for the lease of transponders that was spearheaded by eSwatini TV and EPTC that would have put the kingdom on the cutting edge of communications, yielding the economy hundreds of millions of Emalangeni in revenue from entities such as MultiChoice.
Then the horror of horrors is the sub-culture of entitlement he inculcated to entrench and make himself indispensible, hence the citation - on his retention as PM post-2013 elections – that he was the only man (should have been only Dlamini) who knew how to care for the Monarchy.

As I see it, the question that ought to be asked is; was the late former PM a creation of the obtaining political hegemony – bearing in mind his political star started shining at the height of the erstwhile brutal Liqoqo in the early 1980s when he was appointed Finance minister or; did he manipulate the very political system to achieve his objectives? Well, I cannot stand in judgment of the man who in his lifetime hurt and destroyed so many people, including yours truly, but I can certainly vouch that in a different political system – not the immoral Tinkhundla political system - he would have stood trial and served time for all his earthly transgressions, save for the sin of apotheosis, instead of being honoured with a state funeral. But all considered, hopefully he had ample time in his last moments before soul and body separated – of course in-between his preoccupation with his lidlokolo – to make good with his Creator.