Not many of you might remember the name of Kabelo Thibedi. I became involved in his life in a very dramatic way in late 2005 when I had been seconded to my current company, Yfm, as a caretaker MD. DJ Sbu, running the afternoon drive show, sent a message to me that he was dealing with a hostage drama from a caller.
Thibedi was 21 at the time. For two years, he had stood in queues waiting for the department of home affairs to process his ID book. The day before the incident, Thibedi was told again by Home Affairs officials that his ID book was not ready. The incident clearly pushed him over the edge. He stormed into the department's offices in downtown Johannesburg, with a gun and took the department's supervisor hostage.
He grabbed Lanelle Small, 35, and locked himself with her in a room for about six hours, demanding his identity document before he would let her go. Just after 2pm, Yfm news anchor Khanyi Magubane took a call from Small. "There is a man holding a gun to my head and he wants to speak to one of the DJs," Small said.
I rushed through to the studio where I did the most logical thing possible – I put Thibedi on air and told DJ Sbu to keep talking to him, to calm him down, to persuade him to not hurt anyone, and offer to help solve his problem. I got the news team to call the police. Shortly after, special detectives, snipers, members of the Crime Combating Unit and the hostage negotiation team surrounded the building.
Meanwhile, on air, Thibedi said home affairs were suddenly trying to help him only because he had a gun.
"They are giving me good assistance because I have a gun. I want to say thanks to this gun: this gun has helped me a lot because I am getting good assistance from these people. These people, they have bad manners, they don't treat us well here."
Thibedi said he had applied for an ID in 2003 and it had come back with a mistake in it. "I applied for another one but I haven't received it. They have been passing me from pillar to post, even telling me to go to Pretoria.
"I am sick and tired. I am hurt because I don't have anything to do. I am sitting at home. I wrote my matric in 2003. I can't find a job, I can't go to school, I can't do anything."
"I could have worked at Absa, I could have worked at Nedbank, I could have worked at the SA Army ... I want my ID today. I have realised that I have to hurt someone today, and I want my ID today.
"These people... are corrupt: they give our IDs to foreigners and then they are rude to us."
The hostage drama ended without casualties some five hours later. Police Superintendent Chris Wilken said stun grenades had been thrown to create chaos for the hostage-taker. "The agreement was that he would open the door and come out of the office, which he did. And that was when we threw the grenades, to disorientate him for a few moments. No shots were fired and he did not put up any resistance."
It was then that they discovered that Thibedi had a toy gun.
Fast forward some years later and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was appointed Minister of Home Affairs. I got a call from her spokesman, Ronnie Mamoepa. "Chief," he said to me, "let's work together to fix this thing for your listeners."
Today, walking into a home affairs office in Johannesburg is like being transported to a different planet. Every step of every application for every document is digitally tracked with every official involved in the process tagged by fingerprint. SMS updates are regularly dispatched to the applicant, including when the document is ready for collection. What used to take months now takes weeks, and in some cases, days. There is accountability, there is delivery, and there are smiles from employees.
The African Union met in January in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to vote in a new chairperson. Two candidates stood for election: incumbent Jean Ping of Gabon and newcomer Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma of South Africa. In a not-unfamiliar scenario, the vote was split between the Anglophone and Francophone countries. Neither candidate could achieve a two thirds majority; resulting in deadlock.
President Jacob Zuma was in Benin over the weekend. We are once again lobbying to rally support for Dlamini-Zuma ahead of the next AU Summit to be held in July 2012 in Lilongwe, Malawi.
I think we are nuts. Dlamini-Zuma has taken the most hated government department and completely turned it around. If you think of our cabinet as a soccer team, Dlamini-Zuma is – to my mind – our champion goal-scorer. So why on earth should we ship her outside the country to a marketing position?
The solution, to my mind, is clear. We have the ideal candidate for the job of AU Chairperson, and that person is Thabo Mbeki. He has the passion, he has the vision, and he has the respect of others on the continent.
What is needed is for President Zuma to recognise that this is an opportunity to make use of Mbeki's prodigious talents in carving out a significant role for us in the continent as well as to heal the divisions that have plagued the ANC since Polokwane 2007.