Did the Ramaphosa robots programming break down?
Charles Cilliers  Without a script on his iPad, the president seems about as effective as my computer when it can't find its boot drive. It was equal parts amusing and horrifying to witness President Cyril Ramaphosas near-breakdown yesterday when he was parted from his iPad. We were left to witness what looked like the bizarre near-dementia-laden stream-of-consciousness monologue of a suddenly vulnerable-looking 68-year-old man who was evidently lost without being tethered to a script. Obviously it probably looked a bit worse than it was and Ramaphosas detractors were quick to jump on the evidence that Ramaphosa cant do anything without his masters telling him what to say. And his fans just saw it as yet another charming little thing about Cyril, much like the time he struggled so monumentally on live TV to put on a mask. Okay pic.twitter.com/XcPZTyAGBa  Izwe Lethu (@LandNoli) June 22, 2021  Earlier this month, News24 journalist Qaanitah Hunter said of Ramaphosa that he is never unprepared and is always scripted in his public engagements and, as a result, hardly ever makes any embarrassing faux pas or says things he is not supposed to. Her observation was in the context of a discussion about one of the very strange things he did say when he was parted for a few hours from a script: that MPs earning more than R1.1 million a year, excluding benefits, struggle to make ends meet. One can only wonder what other strange ideas are actually fighting for space in his head. Were offered glimpses of the real Cyril so infrequently that, honestly, we can only guess. Yesterday we witnessed the extreme of the scripted approach, where the president seemed to short-circuit and had a mini-meltdown when his prepared speech wasnt around. He was like an old robot whod lost his programming card and so just kept repeating its error message: My iPad cannot be located. Please insert iPad to proceed.  As amusing as it was, it was a reminder that behind all the scripting and programming, it remains difficult to know what Ramaphosa is all about, aside from loving money. Two years ago, I wondered if he should be thought of as little more than a sock puppet stuffed full of cash. Well probably still be wondering and arguing over what Cyril Ramaphosa did or did not think or believe in years after hes retired. In the meantime, someone just needs to code some permanent instructions onto his logic board, like:  if (iPadInHand = false) {  result = sitDown  }  That will hopefully allow him to go into standby mode in the event his iPad ever gets misplaced again.