ABOUT CHARLES NQAKULA

MR NQAKULA started his career as a journalist in Cradock, Eastern Cape, covering political news from 1966 to 1982.

He started to write, in various notebooks, ideas which he wanted to use for books one day. He published a poetry book, Ukhanyo, in 1974, which was subsequently prescribed for school use. It was published by Educum. He became a member of the Union of Black Journalists (UBJ) in 1976, and was elected vice-president to Joe Thloloe, UBJ’s president. Nqakula became a member of the United Democratic Front and was made publicity secretary of the Border Region of the Eastern Cape.

After harassment by South Africa’s security forces, he left for exile in 1984. He was trained by Umkhonto we Sizwe, the ANC guerrilla army, and was reinfiltrated back to South Africa in 1988 to build underground cells for the ANC in Cape Town. After the unbanning of the ANC and other revolutionary organisations, Nqakula worked for the South Africa Communist Party . He was elected deputy general secretary to Chris Hani of the party in 1991. After Chris Hani was murdered in 1993, Nqakula became the party’s general secretary to replace him.

He became a Member of Parliament in 1999 and served until 2009 after periods as minister of police and minister of defence. He was appointed by President Zuma in 2012 to be South Africa’s Ambassador to Mozambique where he served until 2013. He was also assigned by President Zuma various tasks to deal with issues of mediation across the African continent, among others being Madagascar and Zimbabwe. He returned to Parliament in 2014 where he became the chairperson of the joint standing committee on intelligence.