A VIEW OF THE WEEK: Why can’t the ANC just bench drama queen Nomvula?

The quiet of a Spring day in May 1987 was punctured as an energetic group arrived at the imposing gates of the Poggioreale cemetery in Naples, Southern Italy.

There, the vandals unfurled a banner for the property’s dead residents that read: “Voi non sapete che cosa vi siete persi”, or “You don’t know what you’ve missed”.

These were football fans celebrating the city’s team winning their first-ever Serie A league title.

Nearly 40 years later, and far from the streets of Naples, First Deputy Secretary-General of the ANC, Nomvula Mokonyane, brought her own message for the dead.

Speaking recently at the grave of one of the party’s founding fathers, Dr Pixley ka Isaka Seme, Mokonyane asked the “gods of the ANC” for forgiveness and to bless party president Cyril Ramaphosa with stature. She also prayed that people would respect Ramaphosa.

If they had the material and markers nearby, the party’s ancestors may very well have written a banner of their own for Nomvula: “Leave us alone”.

It was pure theatrics from a politician who has always put the stage before service, and did not help the ANC’s cause.

Want to lose an election? Call Nomvula

Even if her tears were genuine, she should have perhaps sought her own forgiveness before standing as priest and petitioning for a blanket pardon for the party. You see, while the ANC has made a lot of mistakes worth forgiving during its 30 years in power, a big chunk of that can be placed at Nomvula’s feet.

Her fingerprints can be seen on the failings of housing in Gauteng during and after the mid-2000s, when she was a housing MEC focused more on climbing the ladder than providing affordable homes to residents who needed it the most.

These prints can also be seen in the decline in Gauteng government from 2009, after she tore the province apart with factionalism over her restructuring of the provincial government.

It was during her time as Premier that she told protesting Bekkersdal, Gauteng, residents that “the ANC doesn’t need their dirty votes”.

13 years later, she would not be asking the people, but the ancestors, for those votes.

Can’t be benched

As the stink from public failures, factionalism, and theatrics followed her, it was clear that Nomvula was a liability to the ANC in Gauteng, so instead she was elected to Cabinet – a mind-boggling reward system for failure that exists in the ANC.

Perhaps a job as water minister would keep her busy and out of the public spotlight? Except that many analysts point to the time Nomvula took over the ministry as the starting point of our current national water crisis. It was plagued with broken and stalled projects, corruption allegations, and stinging resignations of valuable professionals. Her gaze was always upward, toward more power and wealth, while she abandoned the grass at her feet.

It gave her a sense of invincibility that allowed her to respond to a failing economy by saying: “Let the rand fall, we will pick it up”.

That is a banner no one wants to admit to crafting.

And how was she sanctioned for making such a nonsensical and theatrical performance? She was moved to the Department of Communications.

Failure after failure and corruption allegation after allegation – too long to put all of them here – followed until she was quietly shifted to Luthuli House to be the ANC’s problem.

All those years of looking up to climb the political ladder have now given her a stiff neck, and for the first time she has had to look down. But instead of seeing people to serve, she looked beneath the ground for help.

Where were the ancestors to save the country and ANC when she dismantled the country’s biggest province and economic heartbeat? Or when she collapsed an entire water system that now leaves millions with empty taps? Or when she was found to have been among the key actors in state capture?

Flaming whack-a-mole

Fortunately for Nomvula, she belongs to an organisation of forgiveness and cronyism that allows her to put on free shows in their name.

The ANC will not learn, never mind win another election, until it stops playing a game of flaming whack-a-mole where it only reacts to things it sees pop right in front of it on fire.

It is slow to react to Gender-based violence. It was lethargic this week in reacting to the rising cost-of-living crisis, and it will be late to its own funeral.

But at least it will rest knowing Nomvula will be pleading at its grave, telling them what they missed.