If you took a quarter-century worth of His Excellencies the African leader and tossed them in a blender, you would come up with a Big Man who looks like this:
His face is on the money. His photograph hangs in every office in his realm. His ministers wear gold pins with tiny photographs of him on the lapels of their tailored pin-striped suits. He names streets, football stadiums, hospitals, and universities after himself. He carries a silver-inlaid ivory mace, or an ornately carved walking stick or a fly whisk or a chiefly stool. He insists on being called “Doctor” or “conqueror” or “teacher” or “the big elephant” or “the number-one peasant” or “the most popular leader in the world.” His every pronouncement is reported on the front page. He sleeps with the wives and daughters of powerful men in his government. He shuffles ministers without warning, paralyzing policy decisions as he undercuts pretenders to his throne. He scapegoats minorities to shore up popular support. He bans all political parties except the one he controls. He rigs elections. He emasculates the courts. He cows the press. He stifles academia. He goes to church.source: Blaine Harden - Africa – Dispatches from a Fragile Continent, 1993
Day of the long knives
His Excellency President-General-for-Life Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma hastily assembled his new cabinet on Sunday - some of his ministers were told about their new job only hours before the public announcement.
Some ministers learned of their fall from grace through the media ...
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