In one of his earliest responses to damning allegations made against him by Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, deputy national commissioner for crime detection Lt-Gen Shadrack Sibiya made some startling claims of his own.
The one that drew my attention was the allegation that the popular KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner had dragged his feet in the music artist AKA murder case and that, were it not for Sibiya, the arrests would not have been made at the time they were made.
“I’ve done my job. I’ve served the people of South Africa and there are big cases I can point out, including the AKA case ... I’m the one who was pushing it. He [Mkhwanazi] is talking about the AKA case, I am the one ... He didn’t want to arrest. I am the one who pushed for the arrest of murder suspects ... not Mkhwanazi,” Sibiya told SABC journalist Chriselda Zozi Lewis.
Of course we cannot take Sibiya’s word for the gospel truth, especially because he had every reason to badmouth Mkhwanazi given the earlier press conference in which the KZN police boss literally accused Sibiya of being a criminal.
During the TV interview, Sibiya did not explain why Mkhwanazi, who appeared to have taken keen interest in the case when the popular hip-hop artist and his friend were gunned down on Florida Road in Durban on a busy Friday evening.
Hopefully this, too, will form part of a thorough and independent investigation into the allegations of criminal conduct, breaching state security by sharing information with unauthorised individuals and of working in cahoots with gangs which Mkhwanazi has levelled against Sibiya and police minister Senzo Mchunu.
Given the seriousness of the claims and the power each of the individuals involved possess by virtue of the offices they occupy, it would not be a bad idea to suspend the whole lot while the probe continues.
The country is still battling to come to terms with how bickering among senior police officials on how to proceed with the investigation into the 2011 murder of Orlando Pirates captain Senzo Meyiwa is making it almost impossible for the state to prosecute the matter.
We can ill-afford to have the AKA murder case to also become protracted amid claims of the existence of more than one police theory — or even more than one docket — of the murder investigation.
As President Cyril Ramaphosa returns to the country after his three-day-stay in Brazil for a Brics Summit, high on his agenda must be to get to the bottom of the allegations that have shaken the South African Police Service to its very foundation. This is not one of those cases where the president can take his time, while watching which direction the crisis takes before acting.
The crisis requires his urgent and decisive intervention, lest it festers like a sore before quickly spreading to the streets and causing instability.
Already there are too many citizens who are reading too many things into what Mkhwanazi said. Drug-ravaged communities who, over the years, have watched in frustration as their local police failed to root out the scourge from their neighbourhoods are now wondering if that failure was not by design.
They are asking themselves that if suspected gang leaders, some accused of being involved in the illicit drugs trade, can count top national police as their associates and two ministers — one current and the other former — as their friends and business partners, can the fight against crime ever be won?
In the process, some of them start looking for heroes versus villains in both the police service and in the body politic. Soon these may morph into solid factions, where one side is not willing to listen to another.
Already there is talk of people organising mass marches and rallies in support of Mkhwanazi, seen as a courageous cop who should be protected from the political establishment and his SAPS bosses.
While we all have a right to take sides and to demonstrate in support of any cause we deem noble, there is still a duty to investigate all claims made and to prosecute those aiding and abetting criminal networks and jeopardising the safety and security of citizens.
While it is true that, as citizens, we are commission-fatigued and that the eventual disappointment of no-one really being sent to prison for state capture after we had spent a billion rand on judge Zondo’s commission has made us wary of such platforms, the Mkhwanazi allegations demand an independent inquiry with full powers of subpoena and headed by a judge.
Given the seriousness of the claims and the power each of the individuals involved possess by virtue of the offices they occupy, it would not be a bad idea to suspend the whole lot while the probe continues.
For opinion and analysis consideration, email Opinions@timeslive.co.za
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