VBS buddies Shivambu and Zuma cozy up after EFF broken bromance

One of the things that Jacob Zuma and Floyd Shivambu have in common – and there is so much the two men share – is that they are both beneficiaries of looted VBS Mutual Bank largesse.

No wonder Shivambu swiped right on Zuma’s profile while doing speed dating on political Tinder. He has now opted to hitch his revolutionary wagon to Zuma’s dynastic project, the MK party, which has 58 seats in Parliament just waiting to be leveraged.

With the convicted former president too sullied to take up leadership in the National Assembly, according to the law, Zuma needed a proxy with a proven track record that dovetailed with his own project. All those recent purges in MK and the stealth-bombing of former judge John Hlope into Parliament are about this – it was preparation for things to come.

Oh, by the way, almost forgot, the country’s veteran political courtesan, Jimmy Manyi, also resigned from the EFF to follow Shivambu to MK. Always the bridesmaid, Jimmy, never the bride.

If you can’t beat ’em

In 2017, Shivambu and EFF leader Julius Malema met in a penthouse in Sandton with convicted VBS chairperson Tshifhiwa Matodzi,  according to the latter’s explosive witness statement, after the fighters had whipped up a public storm about the bank’s granting of a R7.8-million loan to Zuma.

This, of course, came after revelations that Zuma had hoovered up R250-million in public funds on upgrades to his sprawling private estate at Nkandla.

With chants of “pay back the money” from the EFF benches still ringing in the national consciousness, Matodzi’s witness statement claims  he bought silence from the revolutionaries, who stopped criticising the deal when they scored a R16-million “loan” in stolen VBS funds.

Matodzi is now serving a 15-year prison term. The clock is ticking for the other politically exposed implicated persons who are now playing musical chairs.

Read more: Ex-VBS chair lifts the lid on how Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu grabbed R16.1m from dying bank

KwaZulu-Natal showed up big time for MK and not so much for the EFF. But that was all to be expected.

KZN arrow to the heart

The pickings were going to be easy in the faction-ridden province as the ANC’s support declined prior to the 2024 elections.

The guy who was responsible for the most phenomenal growth of the EFF in KwaZulu-Natal was Vusi Khoza, the party’s provincial chair, who grew its vote from 2% in 2014 to 10% in 2019.

But Khoza was dismissed by the EFF’s commander-in-chief in August 2023 for failing to fill up enough buses from the hotly contested province to attend the EFF’s birthday bash at FNB Stadium the previous month – the one at which Malema rose above the crowd on a hydraulic crane.

Prior to this, Khoza had been a member of the ANC before leapfrogging to the National Freedom Party, then washing up at the EFF in 2014 as its provincial convenor.

After his expulsion, Khoza joined the then-launched Afrika Unite Congress of the Shembe Church and, inevitably, MK when it chewed up votes. He was welcomed with open arms.

Read more: Julius Malema says expelling former KZN EFF leader Vusi Khoza won’t hurt party’s 2024 chances

Enter Shivambu

Shivambu was deployed to KwaZulu-Natal to mop up after Khoza’s conflict with EFF secretary-general Marshall Dlamini, who was present at VBS hush-money talks, according to court documents.

Dlamini was recently handed  an 18-month suspended sentence for assaulting a constable during the 2019 State of the Nation Address in Parliament.

Read more: EFF’s Marshall Dlamini sentenced for assaulting constable in Parliament – he remains an MP

In 2009, Khoza faced two charges of murder, one of attempted murder and one of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. These charges were later withdrawn, but Khoza was eventually convicted of public violence and conspiracy to commit common assault. He received a three-year sentence that was suspended for five years.

Someone had to keep the two men apart, you understand. And so it came to pass that Shivambu entered the Nkandla realm, mandated by Malema and the EFF leadership to “bring back party members” who, looking at the two convicted criminals on the menu, had decided to go for better options.

Shivambu’s redeployment to KwaZulu-Natal was announced by Malema, but in March he said that, after “internal talks” about whether Shivambu was the right man to secure greater numbers, Dlamini would be parachuted back in.

Shivambu had failed to fill up the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban for the party’s manifesto launch and the leader was not happy. And you know what happens when the leader is not happy.

Shivambu then packed his overalls for the Eastern Cape. Back then, Malema said this of his ­brother-in-alms: “Is he the right person? Can we find someone else?

“Given the developments of the MK party and the dynamics around that and the ANC’s attitude towards KZN and the IFP thinking that this is a battleground, do we maintain the deputy president, or do we bring an alternative who will match what those people are doing?”

It’s just a step to the right

Shivambu, who is implicated in the VBS scandal with his brother Brian, hauled out his usual Zanu-PF schtick about nationalising banks and land redistribution without compensation at a press conference an­­nounc­ing his defection on 15 August.

The bruiser was never going to be the leader of anything until MK and its not-fit-and-proper-for-public-service leader had raised himself from the dead.

There he will find a vipers nest with each State Capture-marked party member scrambling for a scrap. What a team.

Shivambu likes to present himself as an intellectual strongman, an example of the new type of young leaders Africa so desperately needs. And Zuma has spotted in him a successor to stand on the shoulders of the kleptocrats who have gone before him.

The elephant in the room, literally, is VBS. The wheels of justice are humming, and although Shivambu has taken off his red overalls, he might soon be changing into an orange version of them. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.