‘Could he have said I almost went the Riky Rick way?’ – Prof Mamokgethi Phakeng

Trigger warning: The following article contains mentions of suicide ideation and mental health struggles.

Responding to a question from Clement Manyathela about the controversy that followed her tweet about “going the Mayosi route,” Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng admitted that the tweet sent from her account was insensitive.

This after Phakeng initially denied being the person responsible for the tweet that not only caused controversy but also seemingly hurt the family of Former UCT Dean of Health Sciences Professor Bongani Mayosi. 

Professor Mayosi took his life in 2018 and the decision was attributed to the difficulties, pushback and criticism he faced in his job at UCT as a result of the work he did to transform the institution.

University of Cape Town Vice-Chancellor (UCT VC) attributed the faux pas to her social media team and further claimed that the unnamed person on her team who sent the tweet even sent it from a different location to the one she was in to indicate that she was not the one who wrote the tweet on her own account. 

Prof Phakeng opens up about mental health

Professor Phakeng spoke to the host of The Clement Mayathela Show about her mental health and how she is handling the pressures that come along with her job after her controversial tweet also sparked a broader conversation about mental health. 

“You know Clement, I had to get help,” she began, before adding, “Some people don’t like people talking about their mental well-being but I talk about it because I don’t want some people to think that there’s something wrong with them or that they are weak and can never do anything impactful because they are struggling with their mental health.” 

She then spoke about her experience of taking depression and anxiety medication and how she was treated when this became public knowledge. 

“It was brutal, I had never seen anything like that.” 

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The professor also spoke about the physical manifestation of her internal issues and how it most notably affected her legs. 

She also spoke about how her sons had stood watch over her for a period of time after they had become concerned about her suicide ideation. 

“I had researched ways of committing suicide in a neat and decent manner and I had actually found a way that would do it very neatly and not traumatise my family.” 

“The truth of the matter is that I am a little better now, I was diagnosed with functional neurological disorder… “ 

‘The Riky Rick route’

When pressed to publicly state her stance on the controversial tweet, the UCT VC admitted that the tweet was insensitive. 

This after the late professor’s sister, Ncumisa Mayosi, lambasted the VC in an open letter calling her tweet disturbing and sayying that it lacked empathy, compassion and emotional intelligence. 

In an effort to defend her social media manager, Phakeng further claimed that her social media manager (and nephew) was not the one who introduced Professor Mayosi’s name into the conversation. 

Phakeng claimed her nephew was responding to someone who brought up the late professor’s name after expressing concern for the VC’s well-being.

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“I was actually instructed to hire people to look after my social media pages,” she added.

When questioned about the location tag that was on the tweet – which would imply she sent the tweet herself because she was out of the country and they were here – she claimed they changed it to her location from here. 

“They changed their location to where I am. I’m here, I don’t have Twitter at the moment. I have Instagram. I only post on Instagram. They changed the location to where I am. If you see any tweet that has got no location, it’s me, if it’s got location, it’s not me.”

Manyathela pressed Phakeng on the point of taking accountability and she said that she can only do so when she gets back. The professor said she had instructed her nephew to take the tweet down and that at that stage, that was all she could do. 

“I don’t even want even to judge the tweet because I read the tweet and I thought ‘is there any lie? Why did the letter not actually scold the woman?’ Because I thought ‘is he telling a lie, is he telling a bad thing?’ Basically what he was trying to say is that I almost committed suicide and, of course, suicide is not a ‘Mayosi thing’. That is insensitive. Could he have said I almost went the Riky Rick way? It’s insensitive because it makes suicide something that is owned by one person,” concluded Prof Phakeng.

Her final statement was in reference to the death of rapper Riky Rick that occurred earlier this year as a result of suicide.

Listen to the conversation below:

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