Big men, big lies
AT A PRESS conference in Nairobi, Kenya’s Central Organisation of Trade Unions secretary-general, Francis Atwoli, urged President Uhuru Kenyatta to “sober up” by desisting from drinking alcohol.
This after Kenyatta slammed Supreme Court judges on Friday as crooks for cancelling his re-election and ordering fresh polls within 60 days.
Atwoli said “Kenyatta appeared not to be sober” when he addressed his supporters shortly after the verdict, televised live.
He warned Kenyatta that his behaviour would cost him loss of support. Atwoli’s view was echoed by many on social media, who mocked Kenyatta’s appearance, denouncing him as “Commander in Drinks”.
Kenyatta’s relationship with alcohol is well known. As far back as September 2015, activist Boniface Mwangi publicly urged Kenyatta to seek treatment for alcoholism.
Another big problem among Africa’s Big Men is senility.
Take the 93-year-old president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, who now claims Nelson Mandela cherished his own personal freedom above the economic freedom of South Africans, resulting in Africa’s biggest economy remaining in the hands of whites.
It’s a crude insult, of course, without even mentioning the hypocrisy of the man responsible for turning the bread basket that once was Zimbabwe into a laughing stock; where the economy collapsed to the extent they printed million dollar notes of no value, where it took a wheelbarrow of notes to buy a bread – when it was available.
It is also a cruel, bare-faced lie for Mandela had shunned his own freedom on many occasions, leaving jail only when the apartheid generals were ready to surrender, which they did.
“What was the most important thing for (Mandela) was his release from prison and nothing else. He cherished that freedom more than anything else and forgot why he was put in jail,” Mugabe said in comments translated by news website NewZimbabwe.com, which also reported Mugabe claimed this view of Mandela was shared by ministers in President Jacob Zuma’s cabinet. That’s treasonous. Mugabe said: “I was in South Africa recently talking to a minister in President Jacob Zuma’s office, and I did ask him how they have handled the land issue after attaining independence. I did ask him why they left the whites with everything. He answered my question in English and said: ‘Ask your friend Mandela’.”
Now really.