One of former president Jacob Zuma’s favourite retorts is that nobody has ever told him what he has done wrong.
In 2017 – when the effects of the ravenous Gupta capture project were on everyone’s lips – he told a church congregation that people kept saying there was a crisis and problems but no one had pinpointed what was wrong. And no one had said what his role in the alleged destruction had been.
“No one has come out to say ‘Zuma has done this and that’. If I am not told what I have done wrong, I cannot correct my mistakes because I don’t know what I have done wrong.”
Even as he was being pressured to leave office last year he repeated the same mantra. Whenever he addresses his loyal supporters outside court after his appearances he tells them the same thing. He claims his name has not been mentioned at the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into State Capture.
Zuma’s faked ignorance is beyond comprehension, even from an experienced crook like himself. His wrongdoings – in concert with dodgy businesspersons – are meticulously detailed in the indictment against him, with tons of supporting documentation.
His handing over of government and its assets to the Guptas has been massively reported in the media, in testimony by his comrades and government officials, as well as in former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s report. His fingerprints have been detected at various commissions of inquiry in the past year.
If Zuma wants to know just how glued he was to the Guptas as they devoured South Africa, he should listen to the testimony of former ANN7 consulting editor Rajesh Sundaram.
The TV veteran told the Zondo commission about Zuma’s intimate role in the establishment and running of the station that was both a propaganda machine for the state capture project and a vehicle for siphoning public money. That should refresh his memory a little.