MAKHUDU SEFARA | Ramaphosa has given his enemies just enough rope to hang themselves

You’ve got to give it to President Cyril Ramaphosa. He doesn’t sing about machine guns, threatening people. Or engage in poetry reading that might confuse the enemy. But he makes sure those whose fingers are caught in the till, who mostly happen to be his rivals, face the full might of the law.

Initially dismissed as weak, doubtful, treading too carefully and too fearful of exercising his authority, Ramaphosa’s beat is now steady. If you’re Ace Magashule, the ANC’s administrative chief enjoying extended garden leave, it’s a slow burn. It’s psychological torture. For former president Jacob Zuma, it’s a heart-wrenching countdown. In about two days, Zuma will either be sitting in jail or a search party made up of the country’s top security chiefs, some of whom reported to him not too long ago, will be out trying to locate him. Jail beckons. 

The funny thing is that Magashule posed for a picture as though playing chess the other day. And Zuma is reputed to be a great chess player too. But Ramaphosa, having shown them flames at the last ANC elective conference, is still showing them who’s boss of the game to this day. 

Government has a social compact with society to weed out any form of malfeasance. It is, after all, the ANC’s conference resolution.

The point, though, is not that Ramaphosa is using the country’s security apparatus to unfairly jail those who are opposed to him. Far from it. He is just smart enough to know that we all want a functional criminal justice cluster. A country based on the rule of law. He knows we are tired of being misled by daylight thieves and petty criminals masquerading as revolutionaries. And when Ramaphosa says to his supporters and rivals “let us fight corruption”, who will stand up and say “that’s a terrible idea, Mr President”? 

Perhaps Zweli Mkhize, who is about to become a former health minister? No, chance. Or Zizi Kodwa, deputy minister of state security, considered to be in Ramaphosa’s corner, who we now know is, like Zuma, Mkhize and many others, a kept politician? “I do not come before you to pull wool over your eyes,” he said. Poor guy. Well, a cool million rand and a Jeep in the garage down the line — but a wasted political career that was, not long ago, promising. You’ve got to feel for him. 

And that’s the thing about the chess-player: if you’re his ally but become prisoner to your greed, he leaves you to your own devices. He’s not about to become collateral while trying to save you. Ask Khusela Diko, his suspended spokesperson. His consistent refrain, rooted in our collective desire to curb corruption, is that government has a social compact with society to weed out any form of malfeasance. It is, after all, the ANC’s conference resolution.

The smooth player has got them where they can’t say no. He, like the rest of us, must be frustrated though that the National Prosecuting Authority’s Investigating Directorate barks more than it bites. 

But a combination of the directorate with the rejuvenated Hawks and the now feared Special Investigating Unit, a unit that has given many hope, creates a veneer of progress in the fight against corruption. But much ground remains to be covered, especially on eye-watering episodes of corruption unfolding weekly at the Zondo commission — a place so dreaded by Zuma that he forced the Constitutional Court to imprison him rather than to simply go answer questions before Zondo. 

For whatever time he spent doing ANC intelligence work, Zuma now knows that, as Sunday draws closer, crime intelligence and the State Security Agency are already monitoring his movements to ensure they don’t have to wonder whether to pick him up in Nkandla or Johannesburg. 

In an ideal world, I suppose.

Our spies can also be sleepy sometimes, what with Shepherd Bushiri and the infamous Gupta brothers, the very people at the heart of state capture, leaving the country unnoticed while “Big Brother” was watching!

The point is that between Sunday and Monday, it will all be over. Magashule will be the only senior leader outside, awaiting his own trial for fraud and corruption related to a R250m asbestos contract, awarded during his tenure as premier of the Free State. The anti-Ramaphosa wheels are coming off the bus, with Magashule too out in the cold, spending inordinate hours with lawyers, rather than minding the ANC’s electoral machinery ahead of local government polls later this year. 

Supra Mahumapelo, the former North West premier, is also busy fighting off a disciplinary hearing, preoccupied with issues around procedural fairness instead of substantive governance issues. The ANC’s disciplinary committee in North West had ruled that Mahumapelo and Bitsa Lenkopane, provincial ANC Women’s League secretary, be suspended from the ANC for five years after partaking in a “parallel rally” to one organised by the ANC. 

Siyabonga Cwele, Zuma’s first-choice intelligence minister, under whose watch things started falling apart, also made an uncomfortable cameo appearance at the state capture commission. The only voice out there, which is hard to take seriously, is of the guy who once claimed his mother was dead. He speaks for MK veterans who look anything like veterans. Yes, that guy. Not worth mentioning.

This weekend, as we await uBaba to start serving time, marks the evisceration of a father figure who wrongly thought his imprisonment would lead to a revolution. It marks the end of an era of impunity. It marks the beginning of the end for many who have now come to the rude realisation that it profits no man to sing about machine guns. The rule of law is supreme.