“WHERE DID MY LITTLE FLEA GO?’’
The Economic Freedom Front jolted a decaying ANC, argues
Okello Oculi
Mama Miriam Makeba probably intoned from ANCESTRALAFRICA’ her song above for Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko to reflect on the eve of the 29th May, 2024 elections in South Africa. They might have – for reasons different from those of enemies of the African National Congress (ANC) both locally and abroad – predicted that the party would lose in victory.
Former President Thabo Mbeki has said that Mandela had regretted that after 1994, ‘’opportunists’’ infiltrated the African National Congress. They came in to divert the promise to bring welfare to millions of victims of racist governance. They went into corrupt self-service.
Mbeki noted that Mandela failed to combat the invasion. Mbeki noted that there was a class that did not welcome the season of ‘’democracy’’ and plotted for its collapse. This silent war against ‘’democracy’’ recruited a former Head of Government into sabotaging a timely provision of turbines for the production of electricity needed by factories and small businesses owned by new entrepreneurs.
Plans for supply of new pipes for carrying water to townships and carry sewage were blocked. Local government officials held on to money sent from the national treasury and returned the unexpended funds to source. President Cyril Ramaphosa made this accusation a week before the election. He was pleading for forgiveness by angry and disillusioned local communities.
In the run up to the election the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) did an excellent job of using television cameras to expose diverse ways of failed governance under the ANC. Angry voices rung out from local ANC supporters about lack of functioning health clinics; lack of water for domestic use; leaking sewage pipes discharging sewages across roads used by children to walk to school; failure to fulfil promises of taking poor people out of shacks in massive slums. That news agency served early warning to leaders of the ANC.
Secret Service operatives of the old racist government may have planned to undermine the legitimacy of government through a pandemic of violence. Murdering girlfriends, wives; women walking on roads escalated. Gunning down people enjoying friendship with forests of bottled beer; kidnapping and murdering little girls, and pumping bullets into homes and gunning them down. This would have been familiar territory for them.
The ANC leadership probably saw this hailstorm of violence as a pre-election campaign by enemies of ‘’Democracy’’ fingered by Mandela. As a former boss of ANC’s Intelligence machine, Jacob Zuma was expected to top the hate and revenge list of core supporters of the Democratic Alliance Party (DA).
Inciting the leadership of the ANC against Zuma would undermine the party’s support in Kwazulu Natal. Mind-benders in the rumour and open media would turn him into a victimised hero of a Six-Million Zulu potential voters. Warriors dressed in leopard skin sprouted.
The ANC seemed to ignore the drama around candidate Donald Trump in America’s electoral politics. The more the law was thrown against Trump, the more it fuelled his supporters. It made little sense to imprison Zuma on a flimsy legal mischief when Mandela had forgiven BOER mass murderers of protesting School Children of Soweto, and BOER millionaires whose wealth had been irrigated by open economic racism from 1948 to-1994.
The ANC had walked into the trap known as ‘’BLACK ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT’’. It was a case of being hugged by a smiling crocodile. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe had in his first five years in power overcome getting his wings wet by falling into a poos of honey. His popularity had soared. ANC’S leaders dived in dressed in suits.
‘’Black Economic Empowerment created a few millionaires and ignored millions of a historic poor. They joined dinner tables without being producers who created jobs for those trapped inside slums, and new graduates out of schools. The frustrated graduates became available for recruitment by PENTECOSTAL CHURCHES to dance and wail to JESUS.
After election results were released a Boer Preacher congratulated his racially mixed worshipers for voting against ANC as JESUS approved.
Blaming Israel, America’s CIA, and NATO for vote rigging, is lazy thinking. The ANC fought a sophisticated BOER dictatorship. They could compete in the marathon of international diplomacy and governance. Their friend Raila Odinga in Kenya had earlier on accused a network of computers located in Nairobi, Holland and Venezuela for giving his votes to Wlliam Ruto.
If Israel hit them for accusing their Prime Minister for committing GENOCIDE against Palestinians, it would be brutally idiotic to expect to cheer them across the victory tape.
The Economic Freedom Front (EFF) usefully jolted a decaying ANC. It combated a BOER plot to isolate South Africa by making it a crime to listen to radio broadcasts from Ghana, Nigeria, Russia, and CUBA. The The Economic Freedom Front (EFF) usefully jolted a decaying ANC
· Prof Oculi writes from Abuja
