Last week, Police Minister Bheki Cele issued a stern warning that transgressors of adjusted alert level 4 lockdown regulations, including those found organising or being part of gatherings, would be fined, jailed or both.
However, this past weekend, as the situation outside former president Jacob Zuma’s homestead in Nkandla unfolded, many people questioned why the police did not enforce the lockdown regulations.
Thousands of people descended on the home of the former president, despite lockdown regulations that prohibit all gatherings, and visuals from the homestead showed many people flouting the compulsory social distancing and mask-wearing rules.
This all happened while the country battles the deadly Delta variant of Covid-19 and a third wave of infections. However, the large contingent of police officers who were deployed outside Nkandla have made zero arrests.
Acting Health Minister Mmamoloko Nkhensani-Kubayi was also among those who raised their concerns about the gathering over the weekend.
“I shudder to think of the after effects of the Nkandla gathering, with the current variant,” she tweeted.
This situation begs the question: how do these lockdown regulations even work? Are there special people who get to defy the rules, while others are arrested for being on the roads after 9pm, not wearing a mask or gathering in groups? The answer should be no.
Cele has since defended the actions of the officers who were deployed at Nkandla, and said there were more than 100 armed people in attendance outside Zuma’s house. The minister added that the officers were not scared, but they were drawing on lessons from the Marikana massacre.
Be that as it may, we cannot help but think about the case of Collins Khosa, the Alexandra man who was killed at his home in March last year, days after the start of the national Covid-19 lockdown.
Khosa died after an alleged scuffle with soldiers and Johannesburg Metro Police officers in his yard. The man died from a blunt-force trauma injury to the head because he was accused of violating lockdown regulations. However, this large group of Zuma supporters might get away with it scot-free? How does that make sense?
The Star