I doff my hat to Jacob Zuma for being tough. He is a tough nut to crack. He was right when he said that he doesn’t have stress and there is no Zulu word for stress. If it was me, I would have been dead long ago because of stress.
But Zuma, at his advanced age, is still going strong without trembling despite his myriad challenges and problems.
Although the old man is not my cup of tea, I don’t agree that he should be sent back to prison. In my view, house arrest would be appropriate.
Julius Malema suggests that President Cyril Ramaphosa should pardon him. It is a good suggestion but Zuma should first acknowledge that he was wrong for showing the Zondo commission and the Constitutional Court the middle finger. But given his arrogance and stubbornness, I doubt Zuma would ever acknowledge he is wrong.
He believes he is absolutely right because he is being tried by judges who have been “captured by imperialists and capitalists”. Perhaps Malema might convince him to acknowledge he is wrong but it is unlikely he would succeed as Zuma does not listen to anyone; he listens only to himself or the Guptas. I have no doubt that many people including his lawyers have tried to advise him but in vain.
In my view, Zuma is not different from Herod the Great who was a very intelligent, proud, haughty and inflexible leader. Herod showed himself at times as a wildly passionate man, both brutal and cruel, and ready to use any means to serve his purpose.
If SA was a normal democratic country, Zuma would be sent back to prison like an 82-year-old former minister in Algeria who was imprisoned for corruption two years ago.
Zuma forfeited his youth and schooling by joining the ANC to fight the evil apartheid government. He spent 10 years on Robben Island and nearly 17 years in exile. However, fighting for freedom doesn’t mean he is entitled to be above the law. His supporters insinuate that as he fought for freedom, therefore he had a right to snub the Zondo commission and the Constitutional Court and to plunder the public purse with the Guptas.
The country cannot be held at ransom by Zuma and his supporters. City Press of July 16 reported that there are allegations that an organisation of truckers sympathetic to Zuma, together with Operation Dudula, were responsible for the torching of trucks in KZN, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. The ring leaders could care less about the cost to the economy and SA at large.
They don’t care about the fall of the rand as “they will pick it up”. It is unfortunate that our law enforcement agencies have no clue on how to investigate and apprehend saboteurs because they are more interested in the internal squabbles of the ANC.
Our law enforcement agencies are only effective and efficient when dealing with simple cases but cannot investigate complex issues. If they had the knowhow, they would have arrested the ring leaders of the July 2021 mayhem in KZN and Gauteng.
I also suspect our security agency and ANC radical economic transformation hyenas and vultures could be behind the torching of trucks. We shall wait and see if police minister Bheki Celei and his blue uniform team will be able to arrest both the foot soldiers and their handlers.
• Rikhotso is a Sowetan reader
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