Jacob Zuma is man who has become synonymous with the word corruption and today will be a historical day as the ANC NEC is meeting to oust him from the presidency. It isn’t historical because of this, but rather it is historical because it will be a clear demonstration as to how the ANC views this corruption.
On the discussion board, according to the news, is an insult so grave to the people of South Africa, that it will be an almost harder pill to swallow than him staying in power past today. Jacob Zuma believes, in my opinion, that the ANC belongs to him, and through this so does South Africa. He sold our country to various nefarious characters and the people of this country were expected to pay the bill. Now that he is at the end of the line, he is expecting us to pay even more, to pay for his legal defence for the many crimes he may or may not have committed during his life, both before and during his presidency.
The mere possibility of this even being on the table for discussion shows that Zuma is not a disease within the ANC, he is merely the biggest symptom of the disease called corruption within the heart of the ANC. The ANC is more concerned with the dignity of Zuma than the price already paid by the people of South Africa and the challenge of routing out this cancer which is growing within their body.
But how did this disease come to be? Well, it is our fault. The ANC has for years been doing things in a way that is obviously corrupt. Even the election of their own leaders is always marred by corruption in the form of buying votes in exchange for money or favours. The delegates who were sent by their constituents to vote quite often end up voting for people their constituents do not want. This blatant corruption and disregard for their constituents is a clear demonstration that corruption is the norm within the party and the people of South Africa do not punish them for this by withholding their support. No, the people just reward them in each election for their non-performance.
Will Ramaphosa be the person to bring an end to this corruption? I very much doubt it. He is one man and is already forced to compromise. He has a deputy president which is considered every bit as corrupt as Jacob Zuma and is powerless to do anything about it. He is also forced to talk to Zuma, negotiate with this man who has destroyed so much in this nation of ours, instead of just telling him to take a hike. He is also forced to implement policies he may not think is the best for this nation because he is being led by the ANC, an organisation which has given us a decade of Zuma and his cronies. It is impossible for one man to bring about this change our nation truly needs.
Unfortunately for all of us, the ANC is a body filled with the cancer called corruption and removing a symptom of the cancer is only a way of masking the disease, not killing it. I fear that even though Ramaphosa will do some good things, the body that he heads will remain disease stricken and we as South Africans will be required to pay even more.
