Hogarth knew that the once mighty Kaizer Chiefs will not win anything this season when he heard that the most popular song among its fans right now has a line that goes: “Basiloyile, basiloyile — maar(a) why?” Translated: “They have bewitched us, they have bewitched us — but why?”
Well, it now turns out that Amakhosi fans are not the only ones blaming their misfortunes on witchcraft. According to media reports, there is a strong push for a “cleansing ceremony” at Luthuli House from current and former national executive committee members who believe the ANC’s loss of support has to do with evil spirits and being cursed.
But Hogarth has news for the comrades: you do not need an inyanga, or any other kind of spiritual healer. You do not have to offer any poor animal as sacrifice to the ancestors. All you really need is to deliver water, electricity, health, education and jobs to the people.
Voodoo politics
But if the leading cadres at Luthuli House decide to go with the idea, apparently it would not be the first time that a muthi man is brought to the building to chase away “evil spirits”.
Those in the know say that in 2008 the party’s presidential office was unoccupied for a long period, as the Nkandla Crooner insisted that a KZN shaman first be brought in to remove alleged Haitian voodoo his supporters feared may have been left behind by his predecessor’s staffers.
Only after a cleansing ceremony, it is alleged, did the new party president move into his new office.
MPs get to the bottom of things
It would seem, to Hogarth at least, that some members of the parliamentary ad hoc committee investigating serious allegations against senior cops and a police minister — made by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi — refuse to cast their eyes beyond the Brazilian butt lift (BBL) topic they have been stuck on for the past few weeks.
When Lt-Gen Khosi Hilda Senthumule appeared before the committee this week, she had to answer to questions as to whether suspected crime boss Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala paid for her BBL surgical procedure. She responded by standing up and showing her behind to the MPs as evidence that she has never had such a procedure.
“People have been dying to see this BBL ... I must say I have actually had more guys approaching me now over the phone to say, ‘can we go out?’. So I think everybody wants to test drive. I wouldn’t mind standing,” she said, before standing and doing a 360-degree turn for the MPs and telling them that her backside was now “a national asset and must be seen”.
How all of this related to the ad hoc committee’s terms of reference, nobody seemed to care.
The unlikely adult in the room
Instead, even EFF leader Julius Malema — who is usually the adult in the committee (which says a lot about the committee’s maturity) — had to confess that one of the deputy ministers of police, with whom he usually shared gossip, once sent him Senthumule’s picture asking: “What is BBL here?”
Wholly tempted
Senthumule’s action also resulted in an unexpected confession from the ad hoc committee’s go-to bible man, Ashley Sauls of the Patriotic Alliance, known mostly for quoting religious scriptures to witnesses. But this week he confessed that when the general stood up and “showed your beautiful body”, he feared falling into temptation.
“I chose not to look because I am a man with many holes and I am prone to temptation. What makes it worse is that I changed bags, so I left my bible in the other bag. So I feel spiritually vulnerable. So, to protect myself, I looked away,” he said.
Henceforth Hogarth shall call the PA MP Sauls With Many Holes.
The Honourable Member approves
Not suffering the same crisis of faith was MK Party MP Mazolman Skosana.
“I just want to say we are happy,” Skosana said in isiNdebele. “We are used to the general in uniform. Today she is not in uniform and she turned around like this [illustrating with his hand]. She can do a turn once more …”
Hogarth can only imagine the conversation when Skosana finally spoke to his wife, former public protector Busi Mkhwebane, later that day.
Well-suited intervention
Meanwhile, at the Madlanga commission, which is investigating the same issues raised by Mkhwanazi, proceedings were more serious as usual.
There was a brief moment of comic relief, however, towards the end of the hearings on Friday, when suspended police organised crime unit boss Richard Shibiri was asked to explain a purchase made through his account at one top-end Sandton fashion boutique.
“[A friend of mine] was the one buying a suit, his son was getting married … so he was buying a suit at Zegna …” He was in midsentence when commissioner Andile Khumalo interrupted him with a correction: “It’s not a suit, it’s a Zegna.”
Khumalo was, of course, referencing a memorable line from the 2008 film Nothing But the Truth, in which lawyer Albert Burnside (played by Alan Alda) responds to someone saying “nice suit” by replying: “It’s not a suit. It’s a Zegna. Hand-stitched, 15 mil-mil-15 … You always know when you’re in a Zegna."
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