Bheki Cele fails the nation on crime

It was with great excitement when Bheki Cele was appointed minister of police in 2018.

We remembered him as the national commissioner of the South African Police Service who took no prisoners in the fight against crime, albeit his removal from the same position was for alleged misconduct.

ALSO READ: Bye bye Bheki: Police Minister thanks South Africans on last day in office [VIDEO]

We believed that as a minister of police, we would be in safe hands.

However, with the increase in crime rates, there were alarming theories that Cele benefitted from the commission of crime.

While we fight off the strangulation by the rand, we now have to move in fear because any time is honestly tea time for one to be a victim of crime. Our choice of cars is often informed by statistics of what is on the hijacking red list.

We are moved to change our normal routes of travel because highway spiking determines for us which route we can use.

We no longer make decisions based on our wants and needs. We make these choices based on fear instilled by the perpetrators of crime.

All the while, a police minister who speaks in riddles sat at the helm of the power and we sat in fear in our homes – too afraid to live our lives.

While we may have had fair complaints about ministers, one knows that the greatest sore point, collectively, was around crime.

Cele refused to rise to the occasion. At the very least, he did not bother to allay our fears.

ALSO READ: ‘When I came out of my mother’s womb, I was not a minister,’ says Cele [VIDEO]

He did not remind us that he was making concerted efforts to safeguard the nation and that we were in safe and capable hands.

Instead, the man talked down at his critics. It was his way, or there simply was no other way.

We were his audience who could only clap on cue, given that there was very little to applaud.

Our experience as a country is the report card he needs, perhaps going into the next phase of his journey.

May he remember that he did not do justice to the ever-important portfolio that was entrusted unto him.

Truly, the people of South Africa have been – and are – let down. If anything, he should remember that as part of the line of defence, he served us disappointment on a shiny platter. What more could we do other than to simply receive it?

As the government of national unity steps up to the podium, we hope that in our country we can walk the land of our home and not feel that we are under constant threat, like being on an episode of Survivor.

May the policing portfolio regain its glory of law and order.