Picture: Former Matlosana Local Municipality mayor, China Dodovu
By China Dodovu
2 March 2026- I analogies that the recording widely circulating ostensibly featuring Viola Motsumi, the MEC of Education (also ANC Provincial Deputy Secretary) in North West and the former ANC Youth League President, Collin Maine is “A Hand of God” and symbolises the ANC ancestors who are tirelessly working to free our movement from the grip of the evil agendas characterising it.
Lo and behold, the recording is clear-cut, tangible material evidence to vindicate my long-standing claims that the counter revolutionary forces have infiltrated the ANC in the North West and are hellbent to bury it alive in their uncontrollable appetite for self-enrichment to feed their greed and to sustain their patronage networks.
Thinking deep about the recording makes me very angry as I see it as an epitome, a manifestation and a tip of an iceberg of what the ANC has become. It is not the only scandal that we have seen lately but it’s just an example of what is so glaring in our faces, representing how our leaders continue to spit in the face of the ANC’s renewal program – no wonder Unity in the ANC can’t get off the ground.
Viola Motsumi’s utterances signify the worst cunning ANC leader who is resolute in her conviction to unflinchingly work against its renewal project even ready to die if the unity of ANC cadres is to happen. What we are witnessing here doesn’t only stem from her political ignorance or deficiencies but is a direct insult of what the ANC has stood for over decades.
Motsumi’s arrogance has blinded her and grown her too fat to a point where she can’t realize the enormity of her utterances as she is sucked into a vortex of factional battles rather than uniting the cadres of her movement.
In the face of the political crisis facing the ANC caused by divisions and factions, she exhibits a “don’t care attitude and arrogance of the first degree”, making a renewal project a mirage.
Unfortunately, she can say or behave as she likes because she knows there won’t be consequences. Motsumi is a product of a deeply rotten patronage system that rewards political loyalty and pays no regard to merit or competence. After all merit or competence were not the requirements for her election and they will not be the benchmarks on which to judge her actions.
She is just one part of a vast system of cronyism, degeneracy and greed that has engulfed our movement – a system that is also fraught with buying votes and rigging electoral processes.
Looking at the totality of the situation, Motsumi is a reflection of a lot that is wrong within the ANC today. With such an obvious, overwhelming political scandal of bringing disunity in the ANC, how possible we still call her our leader? How do we allow such a third grade and a reckless junkie to represent our movement in government? How do we take such a wedge driver seriously to chart a prosperous future for a united ANC?
If the ANC was a stable organisation and not tainted by foreign tendencies, Motsumi would be reprimanded, ordered to redress or even be fired for her statements which are colored with venom and perennial hatred for the organisation she leads and claims to love.
Today our movement is standing at the precipice of upheaval and crisis as a result of factions and divisions. If we are not careful, the replication and proliferation of Motsumi’s wayward behaviour to the ANC and other collegial constructs of our society will be detrimental and fatal especially to the ANC’s future electoral fortunes.
In the face of this reckless enthusiasm by Motsumi, as loyal and dedicated cadres, our determination to live and walk with the ANC’s renewal project must not falter. Our awe and wonder must not falter either, for if we don’t push on, the ANC itself will succumb and be blown into insubstantial wisps of nothingness by these instant coffee creamers like Motsumi who survive and lead through rigging and manipulation of ANC electoral processes to emerge as leaders.
Only decisive disciplinary actions can help to quickly downgrade such leaders like Motsumi to junk status so that they are obliterated from the political scenes and evaporate into oblivion. We must have confidence and belief in the renewal project and we must act – for if we don’t act, our call for unity in our movement will be a pipedream.
(Note: China Dodovu is a member of the ANC and the content of the letter remains his views. The Guardian Newspaper and its associates do not agree nor disagree with content of the letter)
The Guardian 