It's hard to get good free advice these days but because I like both Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe I am going to give them some. Free, gratis, for nothing. They can use it or they can discard it. Up to them. But they must not feel bad when I point a finger at them in January 2018 and say: "I told you so."I am giving them this advice because wherever I go now people ask about Ramaphosa. They ask what his game plan is and, if he is really such a great leader, why doesn't he raise his voice while the movement he belongs to is falling apart?Where is he when men of integrity such as Mcebisi Jonas and Pravin Gordhan are being harassed and targeted by thugs?They want Ramaphosa to move out of the shadow of the shady Jacob Zuma and declare himself his own man. They want him to run for the top post in the ANC instead of acting all coy while his fellow contender for the throne, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, gives a speech here, there and everywhere in the republic.People also ask about Mantashe. They say this man spoke so well on Gupta state capture. Then he lost steam and direction like a pricked balloon. They hear Mantashe's clarity on principles, but wonder at his silence when his movement is being stolen by the thief-in-chief next to him.The reality is that neither Mantashe nor Ramaphosa seems to be reading his own ANC properly. They don't seem to realise what trouble it is in or, if they do, they seem incapable of rescuing it from its troubles. So let me help them along.The first bit of advice comes by way of a friend of mine who asked me to take a second look at Nelson Mandela Bay. We all say the people of that city abandoned the ANC. Yet this is what we know about Port Elizabeth and that region: in struggle matters, this was the heart and soul of the anti-apartheid battles. Throughout the 1980s this region again and again showed the country what was possible in bringing down the apartheid monster. It was a leader.Are the people of Nelson Mandela therefore not leading the country by showing their beloved ANC that it has lost its way?Instead of trying to say the people are wrong and deluded, perhaps the more astute analysis is that the people of Nelson Mandela Bay are sending an unambiguous signal to their leaders that change is coming.If Ramaphosa and Mantashe are leaders then they should rush to the Eastern Cape and begin the rejuvenation of the ANC there. They should resuscitate the branches, they should emphasise grassroots leadership instead of the corrupt leadership that has flourished there. They should help the ANC be alive and vibrant again. By doing so, by heeding the message sent so powerfully by the people of that region, they can perhaps have a power bloc to support their bid to ascend to the highest office in the ANC and rid this country of the corrupt, ethically bankrupt Zuma.Ramaphosa, and his potential running partner Mantashe, must also make a clear statement about where they stand. Their organisation is dying. Their membership is leaving them. More than 3million of the people who voted for the party in 2014 have now decided to stay at home.Only a fool would not realise that this is because few people who think straight want to be seen voting for a party led by Zuma.Ramaphosa and Mantashe need to get off that train. As Investec chief executive officer Stephen Koseff once memorably said, they are on the wrong bus. If their eyes are open, they will know that it is headed for a cliff and the driver is drunk and suicidal. They must jump or they will go down in flames with it.There is a palpable fear among many in the ANC right now that if Mantashe and Ramaphosa were to speak their minds then the KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Free State and North West provinces of the ANC would secede. This fear is misplaced. Those who have betrayed the ANC in the leadership of these provinces know full well that they are nothing without Brand ANC. Faced with the real and immediate prospect of a rupture of the party, they will fall in.That means Ramaphosa and Mantashe must be brave. Time is not on their side. The man they have propped up for the past nine years is cowering in the corner, hitting out at everyone and pulling South Africa down with him. He is unable to find a single new thought to lead his party and country out of its deep malaise.Will Ramaphosa and Mantashe do it? History waits. It will judge them harshly if they don't...