As the country reeled from a week of bloody headlines and political arrests, former MK Party secretary-general Floyd Shivambu quietly discovered something just as unsettling — two Mpumalanga settlements named Nkandla and Marikana, both buried under the dust of neglect.
Shivambu, who is consulting communities across the country to build support for his new political outfit, the Afrika Mayibuye Movement, found these symbolically named settlements not in the news but in the heart of Thaba Chweu Local Municipality, near Mashishing.
The names immediately evoke political theatre: Nkandla, long tied to MK Party leader Jacob Zuma, whose homestead became both fortress and metaphor for executive excess; and Marikana, forever etched into history by the 2012 massacre in North West — a moment so searing that EFF leader Julius Malema declared in Parliament: “The ANC massacred the people of Marikana.”
Worse off than namesakes
Yet in Mpumalanga, the tragedy is different. There are no gunshots, only silence. No massacres, only missing clinics and dry taps.
“I come from Mashishing and we are facing a lot of crises. I fall under Ward 30, which has many areas where there is no clinic,” said Luther Moagi, who travelled 118km to Garelane village in Bushbuckridge to speak to Shivambu.
“It takes three months for the government’s mobile clinic to come by — and then it disappears for three months,” he told the gathering.
“Our people have to travel 20km to Pilgrim’s Rest just to receive medical attention,” Moagi continued. “Where I come from, there is a place named Marikana. It was formalised in 2013, but still has no water services and electricity. The municipality passed the laws to formalise it.”
He added: “We also have a place called Nkandla. It was also formalised and there are many people living there, who are forced to become izinyokanyoka (electricity thieves).”
Moagi said the illegal power connections were not only a crime but a danger.
“The illegal connections often kill domestic animals, which is an unignorable sign of the danger at hand,” he said. “There are children going to crèche and some play in the streets. Where is safety in Marikana and Nkandla?”
Turning to Shivambu, Moagi pleaded: “As a new party being formed, we are asking for Mayibuye to help. Please do something. We have a lot of hope in you. We have been running after parties that don’t care. As you [Floyd] said it, you came from the ANC Youth League, the EFF and the MK, it is the same with us. We left the ANC for the MK. Now, we are following you. We humbly request you to take our concerns seriously.”
Civil plight noted
Shivambu acknowledged the gravity of the stories he had heard and promised that the Bohlabela region, which includes Bushbuckridge and Thaba Chweu, would not be forgotten.
“We have heard your service delivery challenges. We’ve heard of endless marches but nothing has changed,” he said. “One thing which we want to assure all of you today is that we will start a political organisation and call it Afrika Mayibuye Movement.”
As mild applause followed, Shivambu continued: “Once we start it, it will belong to all of you here and to everyone across the country. It won’t be a party with a surname. It won’t be a Shivambu party. It will be a party for the entire South African nation. We are going to start Afrika Mayibuye as a political movement and register it as a political party.”
He reminded attendees of his own political journey — through the ANC, the EFF, and recently the MK Party.
He warned that speeches in Parliament were meaningless without power in local government: “We must take power at municipal level because making speeches in Parliament has no impact.”
Parting shot
Then came his sharpest jab yet — a parting shot aimed at his former party, the MKP.
“I realised the EFF had lost its way, and I went to assist Zuma in MKP, only to find it was a family business,” Shivambu said.
“It doesn’t matter what was agreed at a meeting [of MKP] or what the priorities are. It doesn’t matter. To be honest, the decisions that are being taken at uMkhonto weSizwe are aimed at making enough money to enrich the family.”
He added: “When there are no donations coming externally, they take organisational funds — the allocation from Parliament. We are not gossiping. We raised this issue inside.”
As Shivambu continues his consultation tour, the people of Mpumalanga’s “other Nkandla and Marikana” wait, not for applause, but for a pipeline, a power line, and perhaps — at last — a lifeline.
