Thabiso Zulu is a hard man to track down. To meet him face to face one has to jump through a couple of security hurdles.
This is not because of paranoia but because, in his relatively young life, Zulu has had brushes with death and has every reason to believe there is a bullet out there with his name on it.
In one instance, close to a decade ago, he came eyeball to eyeball with a man he now believes was hired to kill him. He was saved only by his wits.
He does not say it, but he must feel fortunate that he has made it this far. His old comrade and friend, Sindiso Magaqa, did not.
We arrange to meet just days after the Magaqa murder case reached a major milestone. One of the men who shot him, 37-year-old Sibusiso Ncengwa, had been sentenced to an effective 25 years imprisonment by the high court in Pietermaritzburg.
A few weeks earlier, Ncengwa had made an admission to the court detailing his role in the July 13 2017 assassination and outlining the interactions he had with his alleged co-conspirators — Sbonelo Myeza, Mlungisi Ncalane and Mbulelo Mpofana.
It makes for chilling reading, not only exposing how a mayor and a senior municipal official allegedly commissioned the killing, but also linking police crime intelligence to an unlicensed AK-47 used in the murder.
In the wake of KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s damning claims about links between the criminal underworld, bent politicians and corrupt cops, Ncengwa’s confession assumes new significance.
Among Mkhwanazi’s most direct accusations against police minister Senzo Mchunu is that he jeopardised investigations into hundreds of murder cases similar to Magaqa's by disbanding the SAPS's political killings task team. The team was put together in 2019 after years of frustration over the unsolved murders of political figures.
The Magaqa investigation predates the establishment of the task team, but what it reveals may offer clues to why so many such killings go unsolved — and why, when there is a breakthrough, only the foot soldiers are arrested, not the politicians who commissioned the killings.
Police cracked the Magaqa case in 2018, charging Ncengwa for the murder. Other suspects, including the now late mayor Mluleki Ndobe, were also arrested, but the case dragged on for years.
Though the main motive for Magaqa’s killing was his determination to expose corruption surrounding the construction of a multimillion-rand community hall in his hometown of Umzimkhulu in KwaZulu-Natal, Zulu traces the genesis of the conflict with Ndobe back to the early 2000s.
The town had just been incorporated into KwaZulu-Natal, after being part of the Eastern Cape.
Zulu, Magaqa and Ndobe came to know each other as activists in the ANC Youth League in the newly reconfigured regional structure. Though they initially worked together, it became clear there was bad blood between Ndobe and Magaqa when Ndobe wanted to challenge Magaqa as regional chair.
“It became clear to me that there had been tensions between the two of them from back when they still belonged to the Eastern Cape,” said Zulu.
It became clear to me that there had been tensions between the two of them from back when they still belonged to the Eastern Cape.
Over the years, Magaqa and Zulu focused their efforts on building the youth league in the region, with Magaqa rising through the ranks to become secretary-general under Julius Malema.
Ndobe, on the other hand, built his power in the region through the ANC, eventually becoming mayor of the Harry Gwala District Municipality. Soon he’d become an influential member of the provincial executive committee. According to Zulu, this rise in influence was accompanied by rumours of municipal tenders being used to curry favour.
After the disbandment of the youth league’s national executive committee and Malema’s establishment of the EFF, Magaqa opted to return to Umzimkhulu, where he worked for the municipality and served in the lower structures of the ANC.
In 2016, he discovered that public funds were being siphoned off through the hall construction project. He alerted Zulu, who would take documentary proof of corruption to the Hawks, the then national police commissioner Berning Ntlemeza, the Special Investigating Unit and other law enforcement agencies.
Zulu wonders whether the information leaked from one of the agencies that Magaqa was pushing for the investigation. His other theory is that Magaqa himself, eager to have the issue exposed, may have inadvertently ended up telling the wrong people.
Strange things started happening. Whenever Zulu was coaching young players on a soccer field in Pietermaritzburg, an unknown man would be lurking around. He later saw the same man during a meeting at the Durban beachfront, where Ndobe demanded to know why Zulu and Magaqa were after him. The man walked past the car they were sitting in twice, staring at Zulu. When the meeting ended, Zulu avoided what seemed like imminent danger by disappearing into the beachfront crowds.
Months later, Magaqa was dead.
According to Ncengwa’s affidavit confessing to his role in the murder, it was Ndobe and a senior municipal official in Umzimkhulu who ordered the hit. Ncengwa and Jabulani Mdunge — who died in 2018 in an apparent shoot-out with the police during a botched robbery — were allegedly recruited into the conspiracy by Myeza and Mpofana, who told them about the role of the mayor. “The assistance they wanted was for us to go and kill the said person who wanted to report corruption which implicated them,” reads Ncengwa’s confession. They would be paid R120,000 for the job, and were also promised government tenders.
“I need to mention that before we travelled to Umzimkhulu, Jabulani Mdunge informed us that we should not worry on the road about being arrested by police officers. He said that he instructed intelligence police members to look after us on the road ... He further told us that even the AK-47 and Mercedes-Benz which we used belong to the police officers ...”
Zulu and many others believe that Mdunge worked as a crime intelligence informant.
Though Myeza and Mpofana are due to appear in court later this year, Mlungisi Ncalane has been deemed unfit to stand trial and has been sent to a psychiatric centre. While Ndobe was arrested in connection with Magaqa's murder on March 17 2019, the charges were provisionally withdrawn little more than a week later. Ndobe died by suicide in November 2020, apparently after being diagnosed with cancer.
Zulu alleges that documents relating to police involvement in the case have been classified. “Why classify the information? In this case, a person has been killed, he was effectively killed by the state ...”
Given what top cops are accusing each other of, and the fact that Mdunge died at the hands of police, there is cause enough for one to wonder.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.