The Al-Qaeda Islamic militants in Paris might have been the recipients of the award for the most centimetres of newspaper space across the globe devoted to their dastardy deeds this week, but Boko Haram – meaning literally Western Education is Forbidden – indisputably won the prize for the Mamparas of the week.

An explosive vest was strapped to the body of a 10 year old girl who was then sent to saunter through a crowded market in Gambaru, Nigeria. It is not certain whether this girl herself set off the explosives or whether they were linked to a Cellphone so that her leader could set it off at the appropriate time. Whatever it was, the result was 16 deaths.

Classifying this terrorist group as Mamparas is not harsh enough. They are worse than cold-blooded killers as the use of impressionable callow youngsters is despicable.

Main picture: Attack by Boko Haram

The death toll over the past few weeks in Nigeria as a consequence of Boko Haram’s attacks on civilian targets now exceeds 2000.

What has the world’s response been: Outpourings of grief and outrage at the killing of 17 people in Paris by Al-Qaeda? This weekend witnessed millions in France taking to the streets in solidarity with the journalists killed but what response has there been to the massacre of 2000 people in Nigeria?

A few lines on page 3 of most newspapers at most

Part of the more than one million people at a rally endorsing free speech after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper

Surely more attention should have been given to the denigration of these dastardly acts as well?

Of course the ANC was again on top form to be included in McCleland’s prestigious list of the mamparas for the week. They are under the impression that the adage that “all publicity is good publicity” applies to political parties as well.

Here is some free advice Mr Zuma: that maxim does NOT apply to political parties. Maybe your supporters will shrug off your constant faux pas but the rest of South Africa will not. For the second time in as many weeks, Jacob was again blaming Apartheid for load-shedding.

Mr Zuma has a short memory. He should cast his mind back to his predecessor, the pipe smoking Mbeki, who prevented Eskom from placing orders for new power stations. The cogent arguments presented by Eskom that the existing power plants were aging and that electricity demand was escalating with economic growth made no impression on the powers-that-be at the Union Buildings.

Adding grist to the mill, they refused to appoint engineers unless they were black. With a dearth of mathematical skills available, the preponderance of Engineers was white. Conflated with a lack of management skills, the construction of Medupi is now 4 years behind schedule and R30billion over budget!

As the power crisis escalates before Medupi and Kasile come on stream, expect more such inane excuses in the future. Surely the DA and Helen Zilla will be the next suspects to be blamed.

Hlaudi Motsoeneng

Whoever decided to appoint Hlaudi Motsoeneng – the COO at SABC without a matric certificate – as the guest speaker at the release of the Matric Results should surely rank as a worthy runner-up to South Africa’s Mampara of the week. The only reason why I never nominated this unknown person is for precisely that reason. The person has remained incommunicado. Perhaps rightly so as he/she does not wish the opprobrium of South Africa heaped upon their head. They reserved that prestigious right to Jacob himself.

What can one expect from SADTU? Instead of inculcating and upholding values, they are party to the scandalous matric cheating saga. What was this Mampara’s response? The reason that SADTU advances why the answers why whole classes answers were exactly the same – word perfect – whether correct or incorrect – was because they all had the same teacher.

Obviously this Mampara forgot to mention that fact that all these pupils / students/ learners – whatever the current politically correct term is – would also possess photographic memories.

SADTU on one of their frequent amiable chats with the Education Authorities. This one was to tell the Minister of Education that her underwear was too large

I would love to call this person something worse than just a Mampara but that would be libellous. Does he seriously believe that all but the dumbest or the most servile SADTU member will accept this exculpation?

In fairness, it was his responsibility to deflect attention was the errant teachers so that SADTU members are not implicated in this scandal.