Nkandla A proud Zulu story sullied by a leader’s disgrace
| Once synonymous with noble deeds, now the name will live on in ignominy, writes
HERE lie the remains of King Cetshwayo kaMpande, the monarch whose warriors — armed only with rudimentary weapons — stunned the mighty imperial British army at Isandlwana in 1879.
The crushing defeat suffered by Queen Victoria’s redcoats sent shock waves throughout the empire.
Although the Brits subsequently defeated Cetshwayo in the Battle of Ulundi — putting an end to the independent Zulu kingdom — the king has remained a heroic symbol of anticolonial resistance to this day.
So popular and influential was Cetshwayo even at his death in 1884 that the colonial rulers of the then Natal refused to have him buried near his former royal residence, Ondini, out of fear that this would revive the yearning for self-determination among his people.
Sigananda kaZokufa, one of Cetshwayo’s most trusted generals and a man who witnessed it all — from the killing of Boer leader Piet Retief and his men in 1838 to the Anglo-Zulu War — arranged that the king be buried here among his Shezi clan.
It was also here, not far from the king’s grave, that Bambatha kaMancinza temporarily set up camp as he recruited warriors for his 1906 rebellion against poll taxes imposed by the colonial government.
Bambatha’s forces fought many a gallant battle in the nearby Mome gorge and often retreated to the almost impenetrable local forest when the going got tough against the colonial army.
Throughout history, this dark forest has been regarded as a place of mystery by Zulu people — an area inhabited by supernatural creatures.
On a clear day, standing on the southeastern side of this rugged, hilly country, you can see the massive red sandstone peak that is Itshe likantunjambili —“the rock with two holes”, which the Afrikaners named Kranskop. This peak, too, features prominently in Zulu folklore about cannibals and the spirit world.
Welcome to Nkandla, a place so rich with history that it ought to be one of South Africa’s most popular tourist destinations.
Yet the name Nkandla has now entered the popular lexicon as shorthand for the scandal relating to the irregular spending of more than R200-million in taxpayers’money by the state to upgrade the security features at President Jacob Zuma’s private home.
Perhaps it should not be a surprise that the story of Nkandla has been so conflated with that of its most (in)famous resident that it has almost disappeared.
Without Zuma, Nkandla is just another nondescript small town to those who do not know its history. Yet we might not know Zuma today were it not for Nkandla and its tales of heroism.
As a young man who spent much of his time herding cattle and goats, Zuma did not receive formal education. But he
Zuma is the president. I don’t see why there should be so much noise. Is it because he decided to spend the money here, in a rural place?
learned a lot from local survivors of the Bambatha rebellion, which took place 30 years before he was born.
There were two particular veterans of the rebellion to whom he used to listen, Zuma once told Douglas Foster, author of the book After Mandela.
“We would sit around listening to their fairytales. And we wanted them to repeat these stories all the time. Fairytales stick to the heads of kids. This one stuck,” he said.
Years later, he would seek to emulate those Bambatha veterans by joining the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we- Sizwe, and so began a journey that would take him to Robben Island, exile and, eventually, the presidential suite in the Union Buildings.
But if it were up to some of Nkandla’s residents, there would be a clear distinction between the place and the president.
“Our whole history is forgotten now. When people write about Nkandla’s history in future, it will be about [Schabir] Shaik and this ongoing story of the security upgrades,” said Thembi Mpungose.
“Mention Nkandla and the only images that come to most people’s minds are those TV pictures of Msholozi’s homestead,” complained Bhekisisa Ntuli.
“In my case,” interjected a minibus taxi driver who refused to give his name, “I have had cars stopping at the corner there asking for directions to Nkandla.”
He pointed to the T-junction where the roads to Nkandla, neighbouring Eshowe and Zuma’s Nxamalala village meet.
“Since those cars are usually coming from Eshowe side, I just tell them to go straight for another 40km to get to the town, even when I suspect that they are from the media and are looking for Zuma’s house,” the taxi driver said, laughing.
Like most of the local residents who agreed to talk about public protector Thuli Madonsela’s report when it was made public on Wednesday, the taxi driver saw nothing wrong with the government spending more than R200-million on the homestead.
“Zuma is the president. I don’t see why there should be so much noise. Is it because he decided to spend the money here, in a rural place, rather than in Johannesburg or Durban? It is not as if the money was taken from other projects and given to Zuma,” he said.
But, I pointed out, Madonsela’s report specifically noted that money had been redirected from other projects.
“Who is she, anyway? If she wants to be president, she should run for election, like all politicians. This is politics — we can see through this,” the taxi driver retorted.
Zuma is universally loved here and his detractors are loathed.
For Khumbulani Mbatha, Zuma has brought nothing but renewed pride among the locals.
“To have a president of the whole of South Africa coming from here, a very poor and deeply rural area, gives hope not only to us, but to everyone from a similar background that they can make it out there in the world,” said Mbatha.
Does it not anger him that more than R200-million is being spent on Zuma’s homestead while hundreds of his immediate neighbours are wallowing in poverty?
Down the road from Zuma’s house and on the way to King Cetshwayo’s grave is a village so short of essential services that children take their baths in streams. They compete for water with cattle, goats and informal car-wash operators.
Women still walk long distances with children on their backs to fetch wood for fuel, because most of the villagers are still without electricity.
Mbatha was unfazed. “What you are not saying is that Zuma has helped so many of the locals with bursaries so that their children can obtain an education and do something with their lives,” he replied.
Zuma rose to power on the back of a promise that he would prioritise the socioeconomic upliftment of Nkandla and other rural areas.
But when the next history of Nkandla is written, it will not be the stories of Cetshwayo or Bambatha that will stand out.
Instead, it will be the shocking tale of how a government took hundreds of millions of rands that could have been spent on helping the poor and blew it on a palatial compound that now serves as a monument to all that went wrong during Zuma’s tenure.