Author: Mzilikazi Wa Afrika
Reviewer: BATTE LULE
Nothing Left To Steal; is a memoir of a multi-award-winning South African investigative journalist, Mzilikazi Wa Afrika, who risked everything to tell the truth.
The journalist used his space in some of South Africa’s most revered newspapers to expose corruption and corrupt officials whose actions cost the taxpayer millions of rands.
Ironically, although some were arrested after the exposure, many went away with a slap on the wrist. Mzilikazi, a boy from some of South Africa’s remotest villages whose love for Africa and black people influenced him to drop his colonial name of Leonard, chronicles the struggle by black Africans to liberate their country from the yoke of apartheid.
Some of his experiences are beyond human imagination; actually, one of the people he writes about says as much.
“When most people read your memoir, some of them might think it’s work of fiction because they don’t know what you guys in Bushbuckridge went through…you guys went through hell and survived…” notes Francis Lagodi, who was Mzilikazi’s lawyer when he was arrested on suspicion of being used as a conduit for guns used by the Umkonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress.
Lagodi is now a High court judge in Pretoria. Even when South Africa got independence in 1994, the urge for Mzilikazi to continue with the struggle for truth and justice forced him to abandon his well-paying marketing job to try out journalism, where he would impact people’s lives and help hold those with power accountable.
True to his word, Mzilikazi used the pen to unearth blockbuster stories of abusers of power. To him, Africans taking over the reins of power was no certificate to perpetuate the same ills that had pushed him to fight against apartheid and white domination.
Like he says, the pen is a dangerous weapon which, if used properly, can disrobe lies and expose the truth. “The pen talks directly to the man in the mirror and often shames the devil,” he says.
The book, written in simple and easy-to-understand language, takes the reader behind the scenes of the stories that made national and international headlines. It shows a young impassioned journalist who was willing to sacrifice his life to allow the truth to come out. Investigative journalism, in its nature, is a very hard nut to crack.
It requires patience, resources and a lot of time; weeks, months even a years to pull off a single story. In most, if not all cases, investigative journalism touches those with power and money.
Mzilikazi writes that many times guns were pointed at his head in a bid to force his silence, yet on other occasions he was beaten and left for dead as he tried to disentangle puzzles that even police had failed to crack.
In his book that chronicles the different earth-shaking stories, Mzilikazi says in Africa, there are two kinds of journalists.
Those who write about missing cats and those who write about missing money. He argues, and rightly so, that if you write about missing cats then you’re safe but if you write about the missing money, you either get a bullet in your head or spend your entire life looking after your soldier.
However, those who spend their life looking after their soldiers sometime get tired and give in to the temptation of the state where they are offered government jobs with good perks, hence becoming the most ardent praise-singers of corruption and maladministration. These are plenty in many African countries, including Uganda.
Although written in the context of South Africa’s ANC, nothing left to steal is a true reflection of the situation across the African continent where those who came as liberators turn against their citizens.
They raid the state coffers for personal aggrandizement, use the state resources for private purposes and state machinery to settle personal scores.
This book is a must-read for aspiring investigative journalists, those interested in politics and public administration as it lays bare the trials one has to go through if he/she is to succeed in his/her endeavors.
The book is set to be launched in Uganda today at Village mall, Bugolobi
bakerbatte@obsrever.ug
