Jacob Zuma is a Machiavellian schemer, not some dictator in Malawi

It takes a big man to admit that you’ve screwed up.

Former Malawian Big Man Hastings Banda was such a man. A deeply flawed man, but a big one nonetheless.

During his reign, from 1964 to 1994, Banda tolerated no dissent and meted out punishment for any slight, whether real or imagined. This meant scores of Malawians were jailed, exiled or killed, with some unverified reports even suggesting his opponents were fed to crocodiles. Some place his body count at over 6000 people.

So, what I’m trying to say is that he wasn’t such a nice guy.

He did do great things for his country, though, pursuing an economic policy which sought to break free of reliance on aid from the West and Africa’s former colonial powers.

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This meant constructing hydroelectric power stations, building roads (those national roads in Malawi), hospitals, an airport, and an extremely efficient civil service. Like another dictator to the southwest of his country, Banda also placed great emphasis on improving education and literacy.

So, what I’m trying to say is that despite not being a very nice guy, he left a positive legacy for his countrymen, much of which remains to this day, even in a country as poor as Malawi.

Building lots of nice things and improving national infrastructure obviously doesn’t justify 30 years of brutal dictatorship though, and Banda knew this. So, before his death in 1997 (in Johannesburg), he did the honourable thing and apologised for being a bit of an autocratic prick for three decades.

This is shortly after he had given in to his country’s demands for democracy instead of his continued one-party rule, and after having been acquitted on a charge of murdering his former cabinet member the previous year. Banda conceded that he may have messed up along the way, and asked for forgiveness from those he may have harmed.

This may not sound like much, but on a continent where so many Big Men go to their graves convinced of their own divine right to rule, an apology and stepping away from power truly takes a big man, and Banda should be commended for this.

Fast forward to South Africa in 2021.

The 1994 Rainbow Nation dream is long gone, and we have a populace still trying to convince themselves that once again voting for the ANC is a good idea, because Cyril, new dawn, something, something, whatever…

27 years into the country’s democracy, the country’s poorest and most marginalised have little to show for their much-vaunted freedom, beside a bunch of stamps showing that they’ve been allowed to vote a few times, a dependence on social grants, and the ability to visit those areas previously restricted to them, provided they can get past the security booms and private guards.

Yay, freedom!

And now the country is facing one of its biggest crises since that 1994 victory over apartheid, and not surprisingly, it is coming in the form of our very own wannabe Big Man.

Former president Jacob Zuma, who had nine years in power, is showing once again that anyone underestimating his guile and willingness to burn everything, does so at their own peril.

During his tenure, Zuma accomplished very little worth writing home about. He did, however, manage to hollow out the country’s security and justice cluster, and turn them into his personal protection service, while enabling his friends to loot nearly every single state-owned entity, municipality, and provincial government department out there.

Little changed in the lives of the country’s poor, aside from a few miniscule annual social grant increases, and a stack of ANC T-shirts.

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Plenty of massive infrastructure projects were announced under Zuma, make no mistake, but unlike Banda’s infrastructure development programme in Malawi, nearly all of these ended up as nothing but fronts for massive looting and very few saw the light of day.

From Medupi to Kusile, to Transnet, South African Airways (SAA), and more, every single project undertaken simply led to massively inflated costs, missed deadlines and the country falling deeper into debt and misery.

It can’t all be blamed on Zuma, of course. He was simply the embodiment of the greedy entitlement which has become hallmarks of the governing party ever since they managed to convince the populace that it was them, and them alone, who saved South Africa from the clutches of apartheid.

They convinced us that their time in exile or prison meant that they deserved the wealth they and their families now enjoy, and since our education system has also gone to the crapper, the people ate it up.

For more than 25 years, Zuma and the current crop of senior ANC leaders presided over millions of job losses, mass deindustrialization, collapsing municipalities and deteriorating education standards, but somehow he has now convinced his followers that this was all done in the name of radical economic transformation, and not simply to enrich himself, his family and his buddies in Dubai.

Instead of being a big man and owning up to his mistakes, he has instead opted to attack the only things in this country which still work, in the judicial system and the Constitution. He has, since 2008, managed to concoct one elaborate conspiracy after another, in which Zuma is never to blame and everyone is always out to get him.

For years the ANC supported him with their buttocks, were willing to kill and die for him, and protected his desire to rule until Jesus returns. They created the man who now has his daughter sitting in a plush estate built for them with taxpayers’ money, holding the country ransom, while facing no sanction or charges for incitement.

They might not have realised it then, but they should surely realise it now – that Zuma will never admit to his mistakes and he would rather salt the earth behind himself than ever answer for any of his mistakes or apologise for what has been done to this country.

He simply isn’t a big enough man for that. I doubt anyone in our current crop of leaders is.