Dear Mr President. Last week the lovely, kind security guard at my sons school was held up and robbed at his home. I assume he didn’t have many belongings to begin with, but what he did have was taken. He was assaulted and beaten up. We got together as a group of moms and raised some cash for him. Not millions, but hopefully enough to put a smile on his sad, bruised face. This is the gentleman who greets every.single.child by name on a daily basis, high-fives grubby hands and patiently co-operates with toddler nuances. You didn’t walk into his humble home, steal his things and beat him up, but I blame you.

Dear Mr President. I was warned against taking photos at certain venues over the weekend – because there are bad men who will try and hurt me. Rob me, assault me. I know it’s not you waiting in the shadows eyeing out my camera or lens that I work every day to pay off, but I blame you.

Dear Mr President. Students are burning the very buildings they claim to want to sit inside and learn in. They are torching buses and historical places and rioting in the streets. They are turning a noble cause into something very big, and very frightening. You aren’t in the streets burning cars, or assaulting policemen, but I blame you.

Dear Mr President. We are in the midst of a very worrying drought. Responsible citizens are kicking dust in their once-green garden and letting it mellow-if-it’s-yellow. You aren’t kicking dust are you? I bet your fire pool is full and floatable. I know you didn’t physically kill my poor sun damaged plants, but I still blame you.

Dear Mr President. It’s taking me 3, sometimes more, hours to get to and from work every day. Taxis driving in the emergency lane of highways while I sit and listen to 90% local shit on government radio and news about fire pools and droughts and feesmustfall. It’s cool though; those eTolls you insisted would improve our quality of road experience still look helluva pretty with their cobalt blue lights. I know it isn’t you in-front of me in your unlicensed vehicle, but I still blame you.

Dear Mr President. Pinterest is the closest many of us will come to a holiday in the foreseeable future. Gosh, the Rand is like a toddler on steroids, up and down and in and out. What fun you must be having chuckling away as your people scrape cents for bread and beg for food. I myself look like a bobble head when I prey for the traffic light to turn green before I have to apologetically shake my head ‘no’, again, at another beggar lining up in the intersection. My wallet is dry, MR president. Between the taxes and the double jobs and the charity and the constant doling out of money to save our citizens, to help as much as we can, while you sit sipping champagne in full blue pools and flushing your number 1’s. We are spent, exhausted, tired.

But, I must apologise. You don’t always do nothing. You aren’t always this apathetic.

When you sent your wolves on poor Pravin, the only honest one amongst you. When you willingly let your country slide and wobble. You cut the brakes of the vehicle Mr President, and then you handed over the keys to criminals who would speed feely, knowing full well there was no safe stop in sight.

When you used your power and friends to stop Thuli. When you kind of eventually paid back some of the money. When you slept through budget speeches and laughed your way through Parliamentary debates. When we lost track of your wives and mistresses. When you took that shower. It’s time to go. It was time to go the day you started.

Surprisingly, you have done one great and very powerful thing; you have united the citizens of this country in our mutual dislike and disrespect for you. No-body wants you here, we all want you gone. So please, leave. Flee. Run. Resign. Just go. I’ve had enough. South Africa has had enough.

Totsiens. Hamba Kahle. Sala hantle. Sala kakuhle. זייַ געזונט. Lamtumirë. Sbohem. Αντίο. Hyvästi. 再見. La revedere. Au Revoir.

Fuck off.

PS – I treated myself to a manicure over the weekend, and by Tuesday it was already chipped and peeling. I don’t know how it’s possible to, but I still blame you.