Tlhabi Monare, by e-mail: Malawi jailing Tiwoge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza for 14 years with hard labour is the continent's latest worthless "export" to the rest of the world.

Instead of having leaders who make the headlines for noble causes, such as fighting corruption, we are cursed with despots who compete at looting the coffers of their countries of millions.

What little is left at the feeding trough is then used for such sad (un-African?) projects as persecuting innocent poor people just for declaring undying love for each other.

Our own beloved President Jacob Zuma is on record as saying that while growing up in his now personal holiday resort of Inkandla he would fell any gay person who had the audacity to stand in front of him with a single vicious uppercut.

Though he apologised, he still went on to reward Jon Qwelane with a diplomatic posting; this after Qwelane launched into unbelievable diatribes against gay people.

So how genuine was our dear JZ in his apology?

Our fellow Africans must also share a large portion of the blame for the mess on the continent.

How do you explain the jubilation of the Malawian people at the unjust trial of Chimbalanga and Monjeza?

Are these the same people who endured three decades of their own rights being pummelled and trampled on by Hastings Banda?

Just when are we, the African people, going to stop hiding behind cultures and ethnicities as excuses to perpetuate heinous crimes against our fellow Africans, our fellow human beings?

Where and when do we practise our much-vaunted and flaunted spirit of ubuntu that you find in every ethnic grouping on the continent?

Or is ubuntu in truth just a fashion statement that we sell to unsuspecting overseas tourists, ready to be thrown out of the window as soon as they depart? We use the very same culture reasoning that our African politicians exploit so meticulously and mercilessly to wreak havoc all over the continent.

Zimbabweans with empty stomachs still find energy, I don't know from where, to cheer Robert Mugabe when he calls gay people "worse than dogs and pigs", but the 5million or so Zimbabweans who desperately fled their homes in despair and hunger are as straight as Mugabe and his shopaholic wife, Grace. How ironic.

Isn't it about time African people woke up and realised they have absolutely nothing to fear from gay people, and everything to fear from selfish politicians whose gay-bashing antics are meant to distract us from their glaring shortcomings while they loot the continent?

Wake up, poor Africans!