Our leaders fall far short

Exemplary leadership are not words you can use for the people that govern South Africa.

Not only are they corrupt, they are also morally corrupt.

We live in a country riddled with corruption from the powers that be, yet there is an expectation that we must be law-abiding citizens, who refuse to “pay for cool drinks” and must keep on turning the other cheek.

Nothing has changed, despite the Covid pandemic that has held the global economy at ransom, seemingly with no end in sight.

We are told to stay home and stay safe. We are reminded to remain fully masked and avoid social gatherings. We are told that the virus moves with us and the only way we can contain it is by limiting all social interactions.

Our lives, work and even prayer life have been changed forever.

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Yet the leaders who decide our fate, do so from a position of privilege. For them, it’s business as usual – until the very same leaders contract Covid.

Videos on social media showed their jovial moods in another country as they danced the night away, unmasked, and then back home to attend a memorial service – only to test positive a week later.

We are then dictated to as if we were children: work from home, isolate – but statesmen and their kin don’t.

Some animals are clearly more equal than others. This is not about a leader being infected with Covid. This is about leaders not understanding that their behaviour determines how their people see them.

It is about them leading by example, both in and outside of the borders of the country. It is about doing the right thing, seen and unseen. Such behaviour will determine how the people of their land conduct themselves.

Why should the elite enrich themselves, yet shout loudly for justice, law and order when the layman does as they do?

We all know right from wrong, but we would be naive to not admit that it does plant a seed of dissent in the minds of those looking to deviate from acceptable and permissible behaviour.

When ministers are hosting birthday parties at the height of Covid, when ministers are enriching themselves at the expense of the taxpayer, when ministers are faking their qualifications, what expectation do we have of the men
and women we are meant to look up to?

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The nerve of them to hold citizens to a higher standard than that which they themselves are willing to abide by. A standard that they knew was in place before they assumed office – yet they want to blur the lines…

Their disgraceful behaviour unfold in courts and the public space – a true spectacle…

If our leaders do not understand they must lead by example, they have no business referring to themselves as those we have entrusted with clean, exemplary governance of a country that has so much potential, yet is decaying under its grip of suffocating power.

I wish the president well in his recovery, especially because I know the virus can be contracted anywhere, even at the local grocery store – but as the people of this land, we urge him to remember that even he remains under our scrutiny – for guidance…