Shaken Fort Hare University vice-chancellor professor Sakhela Buhlungu, whose bodyguard died in a hail of bullets outside his house on Friday night, has made an impassioned plea to President Cyril Ramaphosa to ensure his safety as he cleans up corruption at the university.
Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Times, Buhlungu said: “I think this time, not the local police, police station commander, provincial police commissioner or national police commissioner but the president has to assure me that I am safe.
“I can get all sorts of platitudes and condolences. I need the person who runs the country to say to me and to my executive and my staff: ‘You can rest assured you are covered, you are protected, you are safe.’ That’s where my headspace is right now.
“Universities are becoming killing fields and it cannot be business as usual,” Buhlungu told the Sunday Times.
“It’s getting very close now. The SIU is going to nab big people and the big people are now at risk. That’s why now they want to kill this thing off and the only way to kill it off is to kill me.”
Buhlungu has been vice-chancellor at Fort Hare since November 2017. In 2021 the university received its first clean audit in 30 years.
His bodyguard, Mboneli Vesele, was shot dead on Friday night about 15m from the gate of the vice-chancellor’s official residence in Alice, Eastern Cape.
The rear left passenger-side door of Buhlungu’s official university vehicle was peppered with bullets. Buhlungu, who usually sits in the rear left side of the vehicle, was in the house when shots rang out from what appeared to be an automatic rifle, according to the university.
He was unharmed and whisked off to a safe location shortly after the incident.
The attack is the latest of several incidents at the university, which has been working with the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to clamp down on tender corruption, the suspicious awarding of honours degrees and mismanagement of funds at the institution.
The SIU is going to nab big people and the big people are now at risk. That’s why now they want to kill this thing off and the only way to kill it off is to kill me
— Sakhela Buhlungu, Fort Hare University vice-chancellor
University fleet manager Petrus Roets was killed in a suspected hit last year; shots were fired at a senior official’s home, with a bullet lodging in her fridge; and a man carrying a gun was captured on CCTV footage climbing over a wall and firing three shots at the entrance to Buhlungu’s house in March.
This was followed by reports of a “hit list” containing the names of 16 senior officials, mostly members of the executive management. The most senior had an amount of R600,000 written next to their names.
Higher education minister Blade Nzimande yesterday said all indications were that the assailant or assailants were targeting Buhlungu.
Buhlungu in August initiated a move to get Ramaphosa to sign a proclamation authorising an SIU probe into allegations of maladministration in the awarding of honours degrees and the mismanagement of funds at Fort Hare.
The SIU was also asked to investigate an individual who, for private gain, was sourcing public servants for study in various faculty programmes.
It was tasked with investigating, among others, contracts for cleaning and gardening services, a tender for the leasing of student accommodation, the appointment of a service provider to maintain and repair air conditioning systems, and collusion between university officials and service providers in which the officials held direct or indirect interests.
The proclamation covered allegations of unlawful and improper conduct that took place between November 2012 and August last year.
“I suspect [the latest attack] is because we are close to even bigger fish now; we are close to the centre of it all. We have touched that nerve that’s why they are doing it. They want to stop something,” Buhlungu said.
He said not only business people and internal staff “were involved in the mischief”.
“Yes, we are dealing with them [internal staff] but there are also political interests, there are big commercial interests. They are working in cahoots.”
He said the shots were fired between 7.30pm and 8pm on Friday, about an hour after Vesele dropped him off at home.
“He was driving back to the house and, by the looks of it, they targeted the driver’s side as well as the side where I sit. The windows are tinted and they assumed I was in the car.
“They basically targeted both of us.”
Buhlungu said he was inside his house when he heard the shots.
“I heard those shots but it is one of those things, because in Alice once in a while you hear gunshots and you think nothing of it.”
He said he didn’t realise his bodyguard had been shot until the security guards at his gate alerted him.
“I am numb and am still numb now. It hasn’t sunk in at all; it’s so unreal. It’s like time has stopped and time is on pause. I’m not in denial. I know it has happened and I know I won’t see him, but it’s hard.”
Earlier that day Buhlungu had welcomed the new dean of management and commerce, professor Richard Shambare, and taken him on a campus walkabout.
His wife, Beata, and three children were at their family home when the incident took place.
“My wife’s biggest and overriding concern is that the next person to die is going to be me, because it was a close shave.”
He said that for him corruption “was never part of the mix and it will never be part of the mix”.
“It’s not going to work for as long as I am there. I suppose they want to get rid of me so that they reinstate it [corruption].”
My wife’s biggest and overriding concern is that the next person to die is going to be me, because it was a close shave
— Sakhela Buhlungu
Buhlungu said he had also been the victim of “a virulent smear, slander and disinformation campaign”, adding: “Some of them are sent to the minister.
“These people have hacked into our e-mails and some of them we have caught and we know the names of some of them. They have tried to infiltrate council.”
He said Roets was killed in May but “not a minister or police commissioner called”.
“I battled with my executive and staff alone.”
The university’s spokesperson, JP Roodt, said police had recovered an abandoned vehicle between Alice and Fort Beaufort two hours after Friday’s incident.
“The vehicle had false number plates and appeared as stolen on police records.”
In a statement, Nzimande said he was outraged and “strongly condemns the murder” of Vesele.
“I outrightly condemn this barbaric murder of Mr Vesele and the attempt on the life of Prof Buhlungu. This attack is not only an attack on the University of Fort Hare but also an attack on the entire post-school education and training sector.”
The statement said Nzimande had discussions with police minister Bheki Cele for a swift investigation and arrest of the assailants.
“I also encourage all the vice-chancellors and principals of TVET colleges to engage with the department on all security-related issues to enable us to engage with the cabinet security cluster, particularly on security concerns that have an impact on the institutions’ ability to perform their duties.”
Deputy vice-chancellor for teaching and learning, Prof Renuka Vithal, who was targeted last year, said yesterday the university has made great improvements in the last year or two after it came out of administration.
“It’s been a remarkable turnaround of the university. In my view, that turnaround is also having to deal with very deeply entrenched fraud and corruption that has taken root over a long period.
“In dealing with that, as we put more policies, procedures and systems in place that now reduces opportunities to those who have continued to use the university as a cash cow. These opportunities are now limited or completely blocked.”
Last March shots were fired into the university’s staff village and one of the bullets lodged in the door of the fridge at Vithal's residence.
She said the shootings were “very unsettling and worrying”.
“The idea that somebody can shoot at university staff or officials is worrying.”
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