With his shocking claims that organized criminal gangs have infiltrated the highest levels of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration, a well-respected police officer has rocked South Africa’s government and gained the respect of many common people.
Wearing a military-style uniform and flanked by masked police officers brandishing automatic guns, Gen. Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi staged a press conference to accuse Police Minister Senzo Mchunu of having connections to criminal gangs.
He added that after discovering a drug cartel with ties to the business community, the jail system, the prosecution service, and the courts, his supervisor shut down a top-tier team looking into political killings.
“We are on combat mode; I am taking on the criminals directly,” he declaredin an address broadcast live on national TV earlier this month.
South Africans have long been concerned about organized crime, which, leading crime expert Dr.. Johan Burger pointed out, was at a “very serious level.”
One of the most well-known examples involved Jackie Selebi, the longest-serving police chief in South Africa, who was found guilty of accepting payments from Glen Agliotti, an Italian drug kingpin, in exchange for failing to report his illegal activities. Selebi was sentenced to 15 years in jail in 2010.
The first time a police officer had publicly accused a cabinet member—let alone the one in charge of policing—of having ties to criminal gangs, however, was Gen. Mkhwanazi’s intervention, which was unprecedented.
The response was immediate. Although KwaZulu-Natal is also Mchunu’s political territory, the public rallied around Gen. Mkhwanazi, the police commissioner, after he denied the claims as “wild and baseless” and claimed he “stood ready to respond to the accusations.”
#Handsoff Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi topped the trends list on X in a warning shot to the government not to touch the 52-year-old officer.
“He’s [seen as] a no-nonsense person who takes the bull by the horn,” Calvin Rafadi, a crime expert based at South Africa’s University of Johannesburg, told the BBC.
