Cyril’s fall from grace exposes South Africa’s leadership vacuum

President Cyril Ramaphosa is falling from grace like many of the executives we bring to power, only for their shenanigans to taint their credibility.

Over the years, we have seen leadership potential in the likes of Malusi Gigaba, Fikile Mbalula and even Mduduzi Manana.

But we have also witnessed it prematurely end when they were engulfed in an unending barrage of scandals.

Also Read: Gigaba lying about video being for his wife – Shivambu

We shout that the youth need to be in the corridors of power but we don’t have any leadership material in this category.

Outside of the Economic Freedom Fighters, what leaders have we produced?

The young are not rising to the occasion.

While we may sing Thuma Mina, who are we sending out? On what mandate and can they relate to the needs, desires, hopes and dreams of a generation they cannot relate to?

And now as we question our stance of “anything but Zuma”, we sit in the furnace of a devil we may have not known.

We believed that for his own business interests, Ramaphosa would want the nation to stabilise economically.

Yet the opposite has happened and hunger and poverty are becoming an inescapable norm for most.

While we wait for the announcement of how this wave of accusations will be handled, we hope that new blood will break into the space.

Also Read: Carl Niehaus calls for urgent arrest of Ramaphosa

But the political youth structures have fallen from their glory days of Tsietsi Mashinini, Solomon Mahlangu and others of yesteryear. And whatever happened to the churning out of youth greatness from structures like the youth league and the Congress of South African Students?

While I celebrate that power has been removed from those who sold their morality to the highest bidder, I have to wonder who can step up to the plate.

And who can speak for a collective who have to voice their grievances through social media platforms because they no longer identify with the political structures that rule today.