Long may Mbaks have access to X

Say it ain’t so, Gwede. Please say it ain’t so. Don’t tell us you have put a gagging order on the ANC’s secretary-general, Fikile ‘Mbaks’ Mbalula.

That was our reaction this week to news that the ANC, whose chair Gwede Mantashe has been visibly upset recently by the loose cannon which is the mouth of Mbaks, was intending to silence its Clown Prince.

ALSO READ: ANC gags Mbalula over Zuma’s Nkandla fire pool comments

Mbaks, you see, is South Africa’s second-greatest comedy asset, after Trevor Noah. The difference between the two, of course, is that Trevor does gags and generates laughs for a living, but the ANC SG does it by mistake.

Fortunately, the party hierarchy has – for now anyway – closed ranks around Mbalula after his recent slip about the ANC having lied about the Nkandla “firepool”.

The ANC has rejected the gagging suggestion with “contempt”, the sort it reserves for ordinary citizens, showing how serious it is about the issue.

ALSO READ: ‘We have protocols’ – Mbalula hits back at Mantashe for comments on Zuma and Nkandla

Long may Mbaks have access to a Twitter, now X, feed. In these troubled times, his garbled nonsense provides for endless hilarity.

And, every now and then, he gets it wrong and forgets to fib on behalf of the party… and we can get a glimpse behind the ANC’s sordid screen of lies.