Drama is brewing in the new Build A Better South Africa (Babsa) political party that was formed by the former world boxing champion and lawyer, Lovemore “The Black Panther” Ndou.
On Tuesday, the former ActionSA leader, Musa Mbewe, told this publication that she had resigned from Babsa.
This was after she had accused the party of acting in bad faith and subjecting her to a “tea girl” role with no views she should discuss nor table with the leadership as secretary general.
Mbewe accused of clutching at straws
However, Ndou came out with guns blazing from his base in Sydney, Australia. He said that Mbewe was clutching at straws and hallucinating.
Ndou said that Mbewe did not resign but she was sent packing by the party, as he stated that the Soweto Speaks activist became a Babsa member out of vengeance against ActionSA.
“Let me start by saying that it’s not in my nature to speak ill of others. This particularly about someone I once referred to as a friend. It is immoral and shows bad character. And often when people talk badly about others it is because they feel badly about themselves or they are dealing with an undiagnosed trauma disorder.
She was shown the door
“Ms Mbewe did not resign, she was shown the door. I personally made it clear to her that her attitude was not going to work. This after the party advisor and myself tried to mediate between her and the deputy president (Tsepo Mhlongo) for over two hours.
“Ms Mbewe came to the party with the wrong intention. The first issue of concern was when she personally told me that by joining Babsa it was payback to ActionSA, whom she previously had a fallout with,” said Ndou.
Ndou said that Mbewe told him that she was not joining Babsa for the right reasons. She was using it as a tool for vengeance against ActionSA.
“As a matter of fact, prior to her coming on board, some people from ActionSA had warned me about her. I was told she was a bully, self-centred and very aggressive in her approach. I am, however, never a person to judge others based on what I hear about them. And I only judge people based on how they present themselves to me,” he said.
Personal issues against deputy president
“Ms Mbewe, for some unknown reason, has some personal issues against our deputy president, Mr Tsepo Mhlongo. I do not know what she has against him. But from the minute she came on board, she was challenging his political knowledge and leadership skills. And she was accusing him of being a misogynist, albeit unsubstantiated. She had only been in the party for less than two minutes but was already dictating things. And she was telling the deputy president that she does not report to him but only to the president.”
Ndou said that Mbewe was not happy that Mhlongo had put a proposal forward to her about her role and responsibilities as an interim secretary general.
He said that in response to the proposal, which was open for discussion, Mbewe started accusing Mhlongo of many things. These include allegations that he had used artificial intelligence (AI) to come up with the proposal.
Unfounded allegations
“The party advisor and I called an urgent meeting to try and mediate. During the meeting she accused the deputy president of treating her like a child through text messages. She said he was not starting conversations with her with a simply ‘hello.’ All these allegations were unfounded. I was presented with screenshots of the text messages exchanged between the two of them. And I could not find anything sinister or disparaging in his text messages to her.
“I am an attorney by profession. So I work on evidence as opposed to hearsay. When I asked Ms Mbewe to provide me with copies of text messages she was relying on to support her case of being treated like a child and the deputy president being a misogynist, she couldn’t produce any. She, however, resorted to accusing me of siding with the deputy president and behaving like his lawyer.”
Temperamental during mediation
He said that Mbewe was angry, aggressive and shouting throughout the whole meeting. Mhlongo even asked her to stop being too emotional, Ndou said.
“She did not like that and accused Mr Mhlongo of using the word ‘emotional’ towards her because she was a female. After two hours of debating, going back and forth, it was clear that we were not going anywhere. So I told her it was not going to work out. Which was a nice way of telling her that Babsa was not the right party for her,” he said.
Ndou said that the allegation that the leadership of Babsa wanted her to be a “yes man” is not true.
