It wasn't me

written on Nov 4/5

Looking at South African President Jacob Zuma’s shenanigans over the years, I am reminded of Shaggy’s song “It wasn’t me”. In fact, it starts to play in my head the minute I hear anything on Zuma. Because I know that’s what he will say.

While Shaggy could teach a younger guy how to fool his girl into believing he wasn’t cheating on her, how does Zuma go about telling an ENTIRE nation that the humungous property he has got ‘upgraded’ over the past 5 years, costing the public money to the tune of R 240 million, wasn’t his doing?

This isn’t the first time Zuma finds himself in a spot. Way back in 2009, he was dropped as the deputy President following rape charges. Soon enough, the charges were dropped and he bounced back as the President, no less. It wasn’t him, like I told you.

When the story of home-expansion was first broken by Mail & Guardian, the total cost was pegged at R65 m. By 2012, Democratic Alliance’s Helen Zille was stomping her way to Nkandla, to see “what a R250-million renovations with public money looks like", only to be prevented by a police line for, you got it, ‘security reasons’.

Following complaints, Public Protector Thuli Madensola investigated for over two years and concluded in March this year that Zuma’s family should bear some of the costs. But the ANC is cheekily insisting that “the President didn’t ask for the upgrades”. He didn’t ask so why should he pay?

Of course, we should’ve known that in a country where millions are homeless, some Good Samaritan woke up one fine morning and took it upon himself to revamp the presidential property as his good deed for the years to come.

Since we are assuming it was one of us who did it, let’s take a look at what the new ‘house’ comprises. Zuma’s Nkandla home is a sprawling property dotted with living quarters here, a pool there, a military hospital in another spot, a helipad and so on. I concur with the government that the revamp was done for security reasons. In fact, I will go a step further in adding that it was deliberately spread out over so many hectares of land.

Don’t get me? Imagine yourself as a disgruntled voter. You are jobless, you have kids, you don’t even have a matric and your girlfriend has kicked you out because you drink and/or do drugs. Basically, you are an average (read poor) South African native. You want answers for why your life is the way it is. And who should know but the head of the state? So you head towards his home.

Somehow, by a miracle or two, you jump the omnipresent electric fencing, you evade the security and then, you are lost! There are so many buildings, spread over so much land, that you don’t know where to go. And before long, the security has caught up with you. That’s why Zuma’s house is built the way it is. So that intruders get lost in the labyrinth before they can wreak any kind of havoc.

Rumour also has it that the contractor is actually a pigkeeper. But South Africa believes in affirmative action so a pigkeeper can and does build a high-security, fit-for-the-president home.

Funnily, the Special Investigating Unit, mandated by Zuma, says the security measures are still inadequate!

So if underground bunkers and bullet-proof windows cannot protect Zuma, what will? Let’s give our Good Samaritan a few more years. By then, he would’ve thought of something. In him I trust!