OPINION | Zuma is more than a mere Zulu secessionist

Begging to differ with illustrious journo Hopewell Chin’ono on Jacob Zuma’s motives.

Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono’s prominent take on former president Jacob Zuma is both bravely inspiring and yet misses the boat by mile on his reading of the man behind the effervescent start of the MK party by suggesting his eyes are set on the trophy of becoming KZN Premier position.

Of significance, Chin’ono entry into the fray is inspiring because it boldly seizes the space left by SA journalism that has seemingly gone to pasture.

It is not the first to see SA journalists’ pride of place taken over by others domiciled outside their borders. The late prolific John Pilger did the same to put a question mark on whether apartheid was truly dead in the wake of April 27, 1994, euphoria. Many must have seen Pilger as a party pooper to rain on South Africa’s newfound democratic parade.

Is this cowardice on the part of insiders or bravery on the part of outsiders? Difficult to say as outsiders are not beyond being propped up in preparation of being authorities that would be trusted over time as worthy of believability in the future to push particular agendas strange to liberation aspirations of unsuspecting people.

But Chi’ono is also an outsider of a daring kind boasting of backing of a track record of saying the unsayables that insiders dared not to lead on. That is my personal grievance. Why do black South African journalists afraid to be on top of their stories by deferring to outsiders?

On this particular piece, I hope Chin’ono is not relying on newspaper cuttings or echoing what has been placed on his lap to abide with to put his name to. Judging by the trials and tribulations he has been through in his home country, Zimbabwe, it cannot be put past him that these are his words.

Suffice to say that Chin’ono is reputedly his own person, I can’t resist but say that his cross border take of Zuma is peppered by the fact that the man is a comeback kid of SA politics. No one thought his return could be as vertical in its dramatic take off.

With respect to Chin’ono, asserting that Zuma had expressed intention to return as KZN premier does not fit the ambitions of a man. If Zuma said it, his actions speak otherwise. He is a man positioning himself as someone back to finish his unfinished business by way of his unpleasant exit from the Union Buildings on February 14, 2018.

Zuma’s headspace is trained for national sphere, as opposed to a provincial sphere albeit that is his proven starting power base that some attribute to his Zuluness to put a tribal stamp on him to endorse him out as unfit to be a national player. Zuma can ill afford such image judging by his ambition.

By his comeback, two possible motives may be at play. He is either dragged back by disillusioned forces within the ANC believing Zuma could serve as a lifeboat to salvage their careers from the imperiled waters it is swimming in.

With respect to this possibility is that Zuma is being elected by circumstances beyond his control to be at cross purposes with current ANC President, Cyril Ramaphosa, believed to have weakened the party he leads to a vulnerable state in which continued existence as force is now being touted as surrendering to the loving arms of the opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA).

The other possibility is that Zuma may be genuinely driven by the benefit of hindsight laced with implied admission of his own transgressions that he unwittingly got himself embroiled with the Guptas presenting the kind of waywardness that was latched upon as unpardonable act of seminal corruption for which he was then opted for as a perfect candidate by global forward planners as a Jesus to be crucified for the sins of the rest of sinners for a crime named as ‘state capture’ that Judge Ray Zondo was charged to be head of to investigate.

The Zondo Commission was amongst others charged to define the concept of state of capture; establish if it exists and investigate roles of actors occasioning it and recommend remedial action.

As to the definition of what state capture is and whether it exists – the Zondo Commission has not favoured the country with a crisp definition. After the inquiry, the country is still not any wiser. The fact that corruption existed, South Africans needed no commission of enquiry to be convinced. It was just a legal add on exercise to what was already known.

Of note is that by direction of then Public Protector Advocate Thuli Madonsela, in the setting up of the commission, she had referred to state of capture rather than State Capture. Despite this, public discourse got steered to holding on the often-repeated line of State Capture.

Suppose the second possibility is the genuine one driving Zuma’s comeback motives, it is unlikely he would wish for his newfound train to make KZN as a full stop as a limit for the power of his ambitions. Zuma has bigger goals than mere KZN as his station.

In the bigger scheme of things, Chin’ono puts Zuma in the league of late Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and USA’s Donald Trump. Rogue is a collective term that Chin’ono gives to the trio.

I have seen many analytical posts detailing why former South African president, Jacob Zuma is doing what he is doing, and what his ultimate goal is if he succeeds in his political and electoral endeavours.

The missing link in these analytical pieces is REAL information from… pic.twitter.com/FcElKvdnrw

— Hopewell Chin’ono (@daddyhope) April 10, 2024

The inference to draw from rogue labelling is that all three are rule breakers – albeit Chin’ono gives no specific examples by which to conclude how such a determination was arrived at.

Whatever the rules the three broke, the common factor with Mugabe, Putin and Trump is that they are dead against being controlled by unelected powers called the deep state.

Mugabe turned the tables on the unfulfilled Lancaster agreement. Trump pulled funding support out of the World Health Organisation in 2020, which current US President Joe Biden later reversed on assuming office.

Putin pulled out of the World Economic Forum’s annual pilgrimages in Davos after unsuccessful attempt to have Russia granted NATO membership and is a demonstrable energising force to the establishment of BRICS to which the Americans not only read unwelcomed geopolitical changes as championed by global south east countries, but also signaling stepping out of an international finance system controlled by Americans with implications on dollar serving as central currency exchange for  international trade.

On this count Trump would not be easy company in the league of rogues Chin’ono holds all three belong.  But on fighting the deep state, the three could be ranked to be in solid company.

In the league of those three, Zuma comes across as a victim or target of those aligned to the global capitalist order.

Global a victim as he might seem, Zuma is just proving to be a game changing force on South Africa’s political scene.

Pledging allegiance to MK Party and yet professing his undying love for the ANC, he insists is his intriguing business to rescue has presented a conundrum that has played itself in and out of courts over the logo as well as the dispute over the name Umkhonto we Sizwe.

Armed with recent court breakthroughs in this under his belt, makes Zuma a political horse that has bolted to gallop acceptance of his mission to the chagrin of adversaries and to the delight of legions that see him present an option that decidedly speaks a language akin to Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).

Zuma’s navigation of this incredulous mission of saving the ANC sets the stage for the coalescing of forces that the capitalist forces resent.

If Freedom Front plus leader, Peter Groenewald’s civil society-like UDF proposition and DA leader John Steenhuisen Moonshot Pact formula were designed to jointly isolate the EFF, as enemy number 1, MK Party stands out as ready ally to be on the same boat of the unfinished business of fundamental change that SA failed to transact in the past 3O years.

It is in the context of this unfinished business of fundamental change that the smell of a patriotic front intimated by Zuma seems to emanate from as a counter third option to Groenewald’s UDF and Steenhuisen’s Moonshot Pact.

Perplexing though is that fundamental change is a mission apparently left to devils like Zuma to soil their hands with that beloved angels like Ramaphosa appear exempted from tackling.

Whether politicians can be trusted for their words, MK Party may just be another of wait and see episode of what this Zuma comeback could as the political shape of things come May 29.

This is a battle that many would wholeheartedly deposit their hearts and minds to see a gap between declarations and deeds decisively bridged.

As for me, my heart and mind belong to me to risk delegating both into the safekeeping of politicians to do as they might deem fit as serial offenders and betrayers of their good causes for which they gun for political office.

That said, Hopewell Chin’ono should sturdy his horses to develop a keener sense of where Zuma’s headspace could be at this time round. Zuma’s headspace is definitely not trained on a province, but the country as a whole to the possible disappointment of those wishing to dress him as being a mere Zulu secessionist. Written by Oupa Ngwenya, a corporate strategist, writer and freelance journalist.