What South Africa needs now are bold, no-nonsense leaders like Mkhwanazi

Just last week the allegedly handsome Minister of Minerals, Gwede Mantashe, who likes joking around – even while Rome is burning – told the OR Tambo regional conference in the Eastern Cape that he had no ambitions of becoming the next president of the once-glorious movement, the African National Congress.

“What mess do you want to put me in? I’m too old to be president,” the jokester minister said to raucous laughter from his comrades.

It was good to hear the 70-year-old who believes he looks younger due to his handsomeness clear the air about where he stands in the presidential race that's clearly already underway. I must confess, I don’t sleep well when he is the country's acting president.

Jokes aside, the mess Mantashe spoke about needs tough, no-nonsense leaders – people like KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.

Unfortunately for poor Mzansi, we have a man of “processes” in charge of the mess in the ruling party and our mess of a country. That ambitious man came in singing “Thuma Mina” – send me – promising to clean up every crook and crony. Please blame my spoonerizing of the phrase on the old ANC chairperson who moonlights as a humorist.

It’s tempting to laugh but the joke is really on all 60-million-plus of us who live in this beautiful country with so much wealth and potential. As they say, you get the government you deserve.

Besides the Grand Mess that is the Republic of South Africa, the police crises have been a festering mess for years. The man who fought for years to be president went in with his eyes wide open, fully aware of the mess Mantashe is not prepared to dive into.

President Cyril Ramaphosa had surely heard of many of the smallanyana as well as the giant skeletons in the cupboards of the powermongers, as we all have over the years. And commissions of enquiry have provided proof aplenty, and the Auditor-General regularly confirms to all who care to listen that the mess simply continues. Therefore, everyone thought going in, Mr Thuma Mina had a good plan as well as the necessary gumption and grit.

Our great country is sinking fast in this boggy mass of a mess of crime and corruption, decaying at greater and greater speed. Mantashe was correct. This mess is not for old men. It’s also not for sissies or compromised renewal cadres obsessed with wealth accumulation.