Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Potter a local ‘boytjie’ committed to Africa
SOUTH AFRICANS far and wide paid tribute to Luke Potter, 40, the South African British national killed in this week’s Nairobi terror attack, but our government has barely acknowledged his existence – even though he was a local “boytjie” committed to the less fortunate.
“Luke Potter might have held a British passport but he was always a South African at heart,” tweeted his old university friend Gareth van Onselen, head of politics and governance at the Institute for Race Relations.
“The most generous, compassionate and gregarious kind of person you could ever hope to meet. The kind of person you wish every person was like.”
By contrast this week, the South African Department of International Relations referred all inquiries to the British Foreign Office. “Confirmation was received about the dual national; the British Embassy is handling the matter,” said spokesperson Ndivhuwo Mabaya.
Yesterday in response to the information that Potter was South African-born and bred with a social conscience, Mabaya added: “We extended our condolences to his family.”
Meanwhile, tributes posted on social media revealed the substance of the 2008 Wits University MBA graduate who was working out of Nairobi as programme director at the London-based Gatsby Charitable Foundation.
“A truly good person who generously lent his hand to Africa,” tweeted family friend, John Brand, a leading mediation attorney from Johannesburg. “My deep condolences to his parents, Meave and Charles, and to his sister, brother, daughter and all his other family and friends. The dreadful evil of terrorism is driven home when it strikes family or friends...