Zuma cries ‘wolf’once too often

Without casting aspersions about the medical advice jailed former President Jacob Zuma has been getting, it seems odd that he now needs an “emergency procedure” which has been delayed for 18 months.

With the latest legal move to keep Zuma out of court – for that is what it is – it is difficult not to recall the fable about the boy who cried “wolf!” one too many times … and when one really did materialise, no-one believed him and left him alone to be devoured.

Zuma and his legal team have been fighting rearguard action after rearguard action in what has become know as the “Stalingrad defence”, in reference to the desperate Soviet defence of that city in World War II.

Just as the Soviets fought the Nazi invaders street by street, house by house and apartment by apartment, so, too, has Zuma fought the prosecution authorities clause by clause, word by word in innumerable actions to delay his day in court.

Without any sense of irony or shame, he keeps on insisting on that day. It’s no wonder, then, that the state wants to have its own medical experts check him out to see if he really is not fit to stand trial.