South Africans should heave a sigh of relief at the fact that we are not about to go to war against a foreign force right now. We would not only lose, we would do so very badly. Why? Because if the example of retired general Maomela "Mojo" Motau is anything to go by, our army is led by fools.
Last Saturday Motau, a former military intelligence chief, led a motley crew of protesters to the ANC head office in central Joburg to demand that the party’s national executive committee (NEC) be disbanded. Waving placards proclaiming "Stellenbosch NEC must go" and "ANC NEC is liability", they sang and danced in front of Luthuli House to convey their message.
There was one problem, though. Motau had convened the crowd to hand their demands to the NEC, which was sitting over the weekend. The man had not bothered to find out where the meeting was taking place (in pre-Covid days it was almost always at the Saint George Hotel near Midrand). This time it was a virtual meeting — and everyone who could string a sentence together knew this beforehand.
It has in the past been suggested that "military intelligence" is an oxymoron, but this incident was really taking things too far.
The ANC helped the poor general out. They sent a minion from secretary-general Ace Magashule’s office to pick up the 31-page document that Motau wants party leaders to read.
Instead of slinking away in embarrassment, Motau opened his mouth to address his followers and confirmed to all and sundry that he is not about to be invited to join Mensa International: "The NEC needs to be reconstituted because within the ANC, we are aware that there are people who do not want to save the ANC. There are people who are serving the external agenda to destroy the ANC …
"Cyril Ramaphosa is the president of the ANC [and] was told that they can only work with him in a coalition. We didn’t hear him loud and clear say: ‘I am not going to work with the DA, because DA represent enemy of this country.’"
Help me here, dear reader. How did this person become a member, let alone the head, of the military intelligence section of our defence force?
Here is the real issue, though. The ANC’s internal warring and endless shenanigans are diverting our focus from the real, urgent, problems that our country faces. There is a war raging in Mozambique, for example. On the day that Motau was taking up precious oxygen and the rest of the ANC leadership were lobbing verbal missiles at each other, militants affiliated with the Islamic State group were conducting another bloody raid, killing unknown numbers of people, in northern Mozambique. The militants have raided villages and towns across Cabo Delgado, forcing nearly 700,000 people to flee their homes over the past 18 months.
This is what our best brains in "military intelligence" should be fixating on. Instead, our time and attention are distracted by Jacob Zuma trying to dodge accountability by continually undermining the justice system. The rest of the world is focusing on a strategy to reopen economies and uplift citizens after the devastation of Covid-19. We in SA are sidetracked by the likes of Magashule protecting a useless, partisan public protector who has been called a "hired gun" by one cabinet minister.
We are fiddling while Rome burns. Why do our leaders have to be reminded of the obvious? Our government debt is increasing in leaps and bounds, our young people finish school and have no jobs or places at tertiary institutions, businesses are shutting down and talent is seeking opportunities in other climes. All this while Covid-19’s hold on us stretches far into the distant future.
Large parts of the world are streaking ahead. While we bumble around with a warring ANC, other countries are vaccinating their people, wooing tourists who should be coming to SA and preparing for a boom.
We are in danger of being left behind, thanks to the ANC.
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