BARNEY MTHOMBOTHI | Mkhwanazi: Hero, maverick or loose cannon?

It’s a year tomorrow since Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, dressed in military fatigues and flanked by balaclava-clad Special Task Force members wielding automatic weapons, bounded onto a stage in Durban and unleashed a bombshell.

The criminal justice system — senior police officers, prosecutors, magistrates and even elements of the judiciary — was in the pockets of the criminal underworld. His ultimate boss, the police minister, he said, was also going around begging for money from same quarters. The country was stunned. Although inured to crime and corruption, it was nevertheless unprepared for Mkhwanazi’s fusillade. We knew things were bad, but not this bad.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, as is often his wont, was shocked to discover so much illegality had been taking place under his nose. It must have taken him a while to regain his composure, because it was two weeks before he appointed the Madlanga commission to investigate this rotten state of affairs. The public has watched, transfixed, as skeletons tumbled from all sorts of cupboards. The criminality is simply off the charts.

A year later, the theatrics surrounding that press conference are being debated as fiercely as what Mkhwanazi had to say. Did he have to walk in like that? Couldn’t he have turned up in his crisply pressed police uniform with his swagger stick neatly tucked under his armpit to bolster his authority?

But the drama, the gear, grand entrance, the aggressive posture, the acoustics, if you like, were a statement meant to reinforce the message. One could have been forgiven for thinking a coup d’état was in progress. But he was warning the public that their democracy was in danger of being upended by criminals and their political lickspittles.

His exposure of iniquities in the police and his subsequent appearance before the Madlanga commission have elevated him to rock-star status

He was combative, daring, audacious, with a recklessness which almost defied self-preservation. He had thrown caution to the wind; his conduct certainly not in keeping with what old hands would describe as honouring the badge. Instead, he broke ranks and took on the establishment. Things could have gone pear-shaped for him. They still can. One never knows.

Maybe the moment called for that sort of nonchalance, that devil-may-care attitude — a disruptor who would burst the bubble. Because doing things by the book had almost become synonymous with getting into bed with criminals.

Mkhwanazi had already earned popularity — and notoriety, to some — for the no-nonsense manner in which he dealt with lawlessness in KwaZulu-Natal. Suspects who dare to go toe-to-toe with the police are more likely to end up dead, an approach harshly criticised by human rights campaigners. But for a public overwhelmed by soaring levels of rampant crime, such an approach is generally viewed with approval.

But his exposure of iniquities in the police and his subsequent appearance before the Madlanga commission have elevated him to rock-star status. He can do no wrong. It pays to go rogue sometimes.

The public’s admiration may also have more to do with a craving for more decisive leadership in all spheres of life in the country. His fearlessness — he relishes a scrap — is seen as exactly what South Africa needs. Given the chaos in the police, there are even calls for him to become the next national police commissioner.

There’s no doubt the police need a firm and competent hand at the top. What they don’t need at this stage, though, is so much power concentrated in the hands of someone with an irascible disposition.

Mkhwanazi has also accumulated enemies along the way. And he always seems surprisingly eager to give critics reason to bash him.

For somebody so forthright and gung-ho, it’s remains a mystery that the July 2021 unrest could have started in his patch — KwaZulu-Natal was the epicentre — and that he hasn’t adequately explained what he did to stop the turmoil. He has also called for curbs on the media, accusing it of irresponsible reporting. And he seems cheerfully unaware that there can be no democracy without freedom of expression, and that, sans a free press, darkness would descend on this land.

Even more irresponsible was Mkhwanazi’s recent threat that “blood will flow” if the war of words between the police and the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (Idac) was allowed to continue. He should be mindful not to shoot from the hip. Words have consequences.

Despite his sins, the public would still cut him some slack. Without his courage to speak up, there would have been no Madlanga commission, and the crooks and miscreants masquerading as senior police officers — and their criminal friends — would still be looting the state with gay abandon.

The same cannot be said about one of his sworn enemies, Andrea Johnson, head of Idac, whose admirers seem to have decided to take up the cudgels on her behalf.

She’s an old hand at the NPA, twice overlooked for the top job before the morsel to head Idac was thrown in her direction. Idac has singularly failed to prosecute state capture cases despite the sterling job done by the Zondo commission.

Despite such important matters on her plate, she has found the time to pursue people such as Dumisani Khumalo, head of Crime Intelligence, over purported HR violations. In this regard, she seems to have taken a leaf out of the book of her former boss, Shaun Abrahams, who, in a desperate attempt to do the dirt on Pravin Gordhan on behalf of Jacob Zuma’s state capture project, charged him for hiring a lowly employee at Sars.

She isn’t squeaky clean either. It emerged during her appearance before the parliamentary ad hoc committee, that she was part of a panel interviewing candidates that included her husband. Her man got the job. She’s a loyal spouse.

But the main reason for the infighting appears to be that there are too many crime-fighting agencies — the police, the Hawks, Idac, and any number of spooks running around with access to unlimited resources.

Instead of going after the criminals, they’re having a great time arresting each other.

It’s a snakepit.

There are too many cooks spoiling this broth.