Eastern Cape premier Oscar Mabuyane says people in the province are dying through the barrel of the gun.
He said the assassination attempt on University of Fort Hare vice-chancellor Sakhela Buhlungu and the death of his aide was another example of this growing trend.
Mboneli Vesele, Buhlungu’s bodyguard died in a hail of bullets outside the vice-chancellor’s house on Friday night.
Buhlungu is on a clean-up campaign at the university, with some senior officials at Fort Hare being fired and senior Eastern Cape politicians deregistered from their studies for not meeting admission requirements.
Speaking on the sidelines of the ANC January 8th statement at the Dr Petrus Molemela Stadium in Mangaung, Mabuyane said the provincial government was extremely concerned about the events at Fort Hare.
“There seems to be a serious criminality element popping in our province. It’s easy to kill. Our people are dying through the barrel of the gun and we’re really condemning what we’re seeing.
“I’m happy that minister of police [Bheki Cele] is preparing to visit the province . We have a special team that must focus on and deal with the shenanigans taking place there.
“We’re not used to people being killed by the barrel of the gun. We need to nip it in the bud from the onset .
“We’ve lost a couple of lives at Fort Hare of all that’s happening there. So there’s a team that will be put together to get to the bottom of what exactly is happening there. We don’t want to speculate and throw bones but I think it’s enough now, it must be dealt with,” Mabuyane said.
In 2021, the university opened a criminal case against Professor Edwin Ijeoma for allegedly admitting and registering former Eastern Cape health MEC Sindiswa Gomba and Mabuyane.
Mabuyane, who was supervised by Ijeoma, was deregistered by the university from its master’s programme.
Gomba was registered for an honours degree in public administration even though she did not have an undergraduate degree.
Several Fort Hare campuses were raided by the Hawks looking into a student admissions fraud scandal.
Mabuyane said there were no problems with relations between the university and the provincial government.
“ Our relationship has never been bad,” he said.
“We’ve been giving the university of Fort Hare money for the last three years to stabilise the issue o #FeesMustFall, that’s why you don’t see protests there. The university gets the lion’s share of the money we give to universities in the province.”
Universities SA chairperson Prof Sibongile Muthwa condemned the assassination attempt on Buhlungu.
“As vice-chancellors we are deeply saddened by this particular development, which took place within the premises of a university campus. Reports which indicate that this might have been an attempt on the life of our colleague, Prof Buhlungu, are hugely shocking,” Muthwa, said.
Nelson Mandela University Council chairperson Nozipho January-Bardill said the fact that murders and assassinations were taking place in a higher education environment was a shocking reflection of the difficult times the nation was living in.
“As SA citizens we should never allow such acts of violence to become normalised and we call on the authorities to speedily bring the perpetrators to justice. We also call on authorities to support and protect whistleblowers and those who are trying to root out fraud and corruption in higher education and in our society broadly,” January-Bardill said.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.