Yes, sir, it’s news, and President Jacob Zuma could be in trouble of a new kind.

Yes, chief, apparently it is news, in the sense that it serves up something new, something that was not there before, something that has the power to arrest our attention, even if it is only temporarily.

The news in question, as I quipped last week, is about Jacob Zuma, the president of the Republic of South Africa, who is in trouble of a new sort over allegations that public funds were used to illegally “upgrade” his private residence.

When the news first hit the wires I was sceptical as to its newsworthiness, what with the evaporation of a huge flying machine (Malaysia) and the brazen changing of European geography (Ukraine). I mean, I thought, who will give a hoot about another Zuma fib?

After all we long got used to Zuma doing Zuma things. His financial adviser went to jail over a transaction involving him and the future president in circumstances that suggested that the big man with his machinegun was no stranger to the shady world of underhand deals.

We heard the other one about his having ‘raped’ a woman who was not only HIV positive but also apparently related to him somehow. Of course he pleaded ‘consent’ plus the obligation of a full blooded Zulu man faced with a female in a certain degree of preparedness.

From that episode we even got tips about HIV prevention. When the business is over, hurry to the bathroom and take a quick shower, and all is well.

There is seemingly something about the ‘quickness’ of the shower that the virus cannot withstand, different than when it is slow. There is so much medical wisdom that our people have not come into contact with.

Miracle worker

In spite of all these stories hitting the headlines before the fact, the man was still able to go to Polokhwane, tackle the sitting President of the Republic, Thabo Mbeki, unseat him and take his place. Did you ever hear one about people who walk on water, literally? This was one of them.

Having walked on water so often and got to the other bank he must have started to believe that he could repeat the feat anywhere, anytime, with any type of water, be it hard or soft, sweet or briny, calm or choppy.

So he went ‘upgrading’ his residence in a place called Nkandla. Public Protector Thuli Madonsela found that Zuma had improperly benefitted from the expenditure on that residence, whose photographs make it look like a small village. Madonsela says that some of the improvements went well beyond what could be considered security installations for a head of state.

Madonsela has not found it difficult to state that Zuma must have known that he knew what he was doing when he did it and that it amounted to theft of state funds.

Now, that may be neither here nor there in the general scheme of things in South Africa or elsewhere in Africa.

The rulers of South Africa, long denied by a heartless system the least that a human being could ask for, now seem bent on making up for lost time by stealing from their own, still suffering, masses of that most unfortunate country.

This time round, though, Zuma is likely to find the water he’s walking on uncharted. Though there have been calls for him to resign and face trial, I do not believe he will be hauled before a court of law.

Already his cronies in the ANC are making the expected kneejerk noises about the accusations being politically motivated, timed to affect the imminent elections.

But what is interesting is that citizen action has kicked in, with individual taxpayers queuing to sue him for stealing their taxes. If that move prospers we too will have gotten a way to deal with our rulers, who have been doing “upgrades” of their own.

One thing still spooks me, Julius Malema, Zuma’s erstwhile ally and now nemesis, was building a house with a bunker. Zuma is building a house with a bunker. How many others are preparing for a class war that they know is coming?

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: [email protected]