Zuma Soapie

The inside track on how Zuma’s wives took to the new addition to the family, by Karabo Keepile. Short answer – not well. I’m running this on my blog, because we don’t want to reveal the source, and although he/she is immaculate, Karabo couldn’t get the official response that would have made this more newsy, and less of a column.

Karabo Keepile

Zuma Soapie

I met a male Zimbabwean journalist recently who was quick to come to President Jacob Zuma’s defence, stating that he couldn’t entirely blame him for his sexual antics, seeing as South African women are just plain irresistible.

“It doesn’t matter if she is Xhosa, Tswana or Zulu, they are all just beautiful,” he confessed, a huge smirk on his face.

A couple of days later, I met a Nigerian man raised in England who couldn’t agree more. He recently moved to South Africa and his statement “I already love this place” appeared to be closely related to what he termed the “caramel honeys”.

So yes, we South African “honeys” are gorgeous, but does that give our president, culture and other men the right to shuffle us around like cards?

Women are naturally territorial and all the women I know say they’d never be able to share their husband.

So how do the president’s wives do it? It’s exactly the question I was wondering when I got my very own “Deep Throat” the other day, from a secret source in Zuma’s inner circle.

The gossip she told me, under strict condition of anonymity, would have provided fodder for at least three episodes of a standard soapie.

It wasn’t exactly news material, but it certainly made for interesting listening. It turns out that what the media and the general public have been suspecting for some time is in fact true: all is not well among Zuma’s wives, particularly among wife number two, Nompumelelo Ntuli, and his latest wife, Thobeka Madiba.

The details got juicier, if my source is to be believed – and I do.

MaNtuli, as she is also known, reportedly went berserk the day the president invited her to Mahlamba-Ndlopfu — the presidential guesthouse in Pretoria — to announce that he’d be tying the knot again.

Apparently MaNtuli “broke the security gates and demanded a cab. When the security guards came after her, she went to another gate, gate four. The house manager had given instructions to the gatekeeper not to open, but she fought him,” said my source.

While all of this was going on, the president was inside the presidential guesthouse, seemingly unfazed.

“After hitting the police [who guard Zuma], MaNtuli’s personal bodyguard was called. He somehow managed to get her into the car and drove her back to the airport to catch a plane back to her Morningside home in Durban.”

In her rage, MaNtuli had sworn not to attend the wedding to Madiba, but she apparently changed her mind, arriving at Zuma’s KwaZulu-Natal homestead of Nkandla in good spirits a day before the wedding.

Time away had obviously calmed her down, but the president wasn’t having any of it, according to my source.

“He put money on the table and asked her to leave.”

MaNtuli until then was the president’s trophy wife. By all accounts, she appeared the more self-assured wife and accompanied Zuma on most of his international trips.

She apparently wasn’t threatened by MaKhumalo, who is said to prefer pottering around the Nkandla homestead to shaking hands with the Obamas.

Sadly for MaNtuli, the very gorgeous Madiba stands to jeopardise her pole position.

Who knows, maybe from now on Zuma may prefer to take Madiba globetrotting instead?

No wonder wife number two lost it.

I knew I had to talk to MaNtuli to confirm these details. This might be a column, but you still want to verify as much as possible.

But when I called her cellphone the woman who answered said MaNtuli was not around to talk to the media.

I then called MaNtuli’s bodyguard.

After asking me how I had found his number he firmly said he had nothing to say to me.

”My job is just to protect,” he said.

So should we care?

Well, our president dismissed a suggestion from an interviewer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that polygamy was “symbolically a great step backward”, or inherently unfair to women.

He confidently replied that in South Africa “we follow a policy that says you must respect the cultures of others. That’s my culture. It does not take anything from me, from my political beliefs and everything, including the belief on the equality of women.”

What a load of cow dung.

How exactly is polygamy in accordance with women’s rights if MaNtuli was informed and not consulted on his decision?

Sure, the woman agreed to marry Zuma, but what if she was told she’d be the last wife?

In effect, polygamy dictates that MaNtuli and all the other wives to follow can huff and puff as much as they want but if MaKhumalo agrees and Zuma has decided, he will continue to grow his flock of wives.

1. 

   Thato Mogotsi says:

   February 18, 2010 at 1:10 pm

   well damn! That’s some juicy stuff right there!
2. 

   Angelo C Louw says:

   February 18, 2010 at 2:30 pm

   LoL! Nice one Ms Keepile.
3. 

   Shezanne Socher says:

   February 18, 2010 at 3:07 pm

   Wow,interesting Karabo. Keep rubbing shoulders girl you could be the South African Perez (but more political of course).

   Good read!
4. 

   Fancy-ilicious says:

   February 18, 2010 at 3:26 pm

   Yeah KB thats some Juicy Luicy gossip right there!!LOL
5. 

   Karabo says:

   February 18, 2010 at 4:43 pm

   Breaking news
6. 

   Mary Pearson says:

   February 19, 2010 at 9:52 am

   Hey – nice work Karabo. I fully agree on the women’s rights issue. In fact, the only way to effectively ensure equality would be for women to be able to have polygamous marriages as well!
7. 

   Angelo C Louw says:

   February 19, 2010 at 2:14 pm

   But then again ladies, lets not act as if these women don’t know what they’re getting themselves into.

   Now before you say that they have no choice in the matter and blah-de-blah-blah, when you see pics of the President’s weddings do any of the brides look sad at all?

   And the notion that anyone is forced into married in this day and age is stupid. It happens, yes, but it is stupid.

   We all have the power to live the lives that we want to live (our constitution grants us that liberty). It easier said than done, I know, but it is not impossible.

   If these women (or any woman for that matter) did not want to put up with the drama that comes with a pologamous relationship, then it is their right not to.

   Maybe the problem is that women who are informed (if that is the appropriate word to use) do not share this knowledge with others. If it’s such a problem then do something about it?

   By the way, I love the idea of women being about to have polygamous marriages. That one gets my vote any day(“;)
8. 

   FND says:

   February 22, 2010 at 11:47 am

   I presume you mean ‘polyandrous’ marriages, unless you’re talking about lesbians.
9. 

   Angelo C Louw says:

   February 22, 2010 at 2:49 pm

   Thanx for the correction bud.
10. 

    FND says:

    March 5, 2010 at 9:53 am

    Whoops! Sorry about my pedantic and incorrect ‘correction’, Angelo. Polygamy means marrying many times whatever your sex. I was confusing that with polygyny, which means having more than one wife: -gyny/-gynae = female. All these years of thinking I was polyandrous but not a polygamist. Hot damn! Another club I’ve been signed up for without my consent.