Leaders’ tweets prove them twits

WHAT is there to be said for those leaders with jumpedup egos and gossamer skins who conduct themselves in ways which suggest their mandate to serve begins and ends on social media?

Any media, in fact, but more so the hollow hell of instant messaging and vainglorious “selfies” that hit the high notes of cheap entertainment but come perilously close to a likeness of pond scum when used as a substitute for actual governance.

Donald Trump, the dangerous terracotta toddler of presidential hue, is a prime specimen, an intemperate creature who rewrites history on his Twitter timeline and genuinely thinks he has all the answers and so decrees what is right or wrong by him. The rest be damned.

Not far off from this orbital space junk is our faux police minister, Fikile Mbalula, whose recent instruction to officers to apply especially violent privileges to the genitals of male suspects and force them to drink their own urine is just an indelicate way of saying “Shoot first, ask questions later”, a strategy laden with all sorts of pitfalls.

Which is the route Mbalula effectively took when he plied his one million followers on Twitter last week with pictures of him at the scene of an earlier arrest in connection with 18 deaths in Marikana, Western Cape.

The suspects were hogtied on the side of the road, allegedly beaten under interrogation, and subjected to this treatment for three hours until Mbalula had arrived for the publicity party.

And this charade all because the minister took exception to a Zapiro cartoon.

Had he been less caught up in his bubble of self-importance, Mbalula would have saved himself from embarrassment by noting a police report announcing the release of six of the suspects – before his petulant swipe on Twitter. A lawsuit is likely heading his way by now.

The police ministry and the service itself has been cursed with an unending supply of undesirables. Mbalula is the undisputed leader of this pantheon.

Suffer the servants who uphold the law with distinction, as well the nation kept over a barrel by a megalomaniac and his cellphone. It is time for an upgrade.