Six months ago, Carl Niehaus led a march to Luthuli House and gave the President 48 hours to resign over the Phala Phala scandal. ANC members demanded accountability and the march was “the first of many protests to come”, he said.

Wearing a Panama hat, thick-rimmed glasses and ANC merchandising mistakes, Jacob Zuma’s number-one cheerleader embarked on an often solitary #RamaphosaMustGo campaign, warning that the President was “very damaging if not totally destructive for the African National Congress”.

Niehaus’s campaign to save both party and country was building up to the Nasrec conference. He’d been staging a one-man protest outside the venue by defiantly holding a #RamaphosaMustGo poster. But days before the conference began, he was expelled from the ANC over comments he made in July 2021. He had vowed to fight any attempt to arrest Zuma after the Constitutional Court’s contempt judgment. The uprising that followed Zuma’s incarceration led to 354 deaths and about R50-billion in damages.

Niehaus’s life has been spiralling towards the absurd for years.

In his twenties he was studying to be a Dutch Reformed Church minister in Johannesburg before he left the whites-only organisation and joined the anti-apartheid movement. He was arrested in 1983 after, unbeknown to him, working with a security police spy on plans to sabotage the Johannesburg Gas Works. He served seven-and-a-half years in prison, which he often inflates to nine-and-a-half or 10 years.

In the democratic era, he chaired a parliamentary committee and later served as ANC spokesperson. This is, of course, to say there was a time before “Carl Niehaus” was a synonym for unashamed hypocrisy and venal dishonesty, before he became an empty body of lies in a real soldier’s uniform.

In a profile from 2021, Niehaus told DM168’s Rebecca Davis that he’d realised the material things he previously strived for, “which led to financial problems, are not important”. They rarely are when you get exposed as not just a liar but also a sanctimonious con artist who would betray friends and family – not to mention the fight for a just and democratic society – for a buck.

Debt and the undead

Niehaus’s financial deceit has become the stuff of legend. In 2009, he resigned as ANC spokesperson after tearfully admitting to Mail & Guardian journalist Pearlie Joubert that he had forged signatures while working at the Gauteng Economic Development Agency. He borrowed huge sums from ANC comrades and business leaders, without paying them back. He left a job at Deloitte & Touche in 2003 owing to his embarrassing financial fancies and owed the Rhema Church more than R700,000.

An East London travel agency owner said she fronted Niehaus R100,000 so he could go on holiday with his family while he was battling leukaemia (he wasn’t).

When a landlord demanded Niehaus pay R4.3-million in rent and damages for two Sandton apartments, he claimed his mother had died and he would use his inheritance to pay the debt. Magrietha Niehaus, who in 1983 had told the court her son was “still a good boy at heart”, was still alive.

In 2011, he borrowed money from then deputy justice minister Andries Nel to bury his father. Nel reportedly tried to attend the funeral but Niehaus’s father was, in fact, alive.

He was also exposed for lying about having a doctorate in theology from Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

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In a perverse way, even though he lost his ANC job and party membership, the Ramaphosa years have been kind to Niehaus. He’s been on a crusade of loyalty to the likes of Zuma, Ace Magashule, Bathabile Dlamini and the Radical Economic Transformation forces. He’s more a mascot to corruption and incompetence than a political player and has had ample opportunities to don the MK fatigues in which he never trained nor served.

The day after he was expelled by the ANC, Niehaus protested outside Parliament ahead of the debate on the Phala Phala report. He stood his ground against police shields like a veteran activist who refuses to give up the cause. Niehaus clearly still has a lot of struggle left in him, but despite all the bluster his fight is and always will be for his own relevance. DM168

How we chose the People of the Year winners

In the past, Daily Maverick journalists decided who they thought warranted the title of Person of the Year, but for the second year running, we have asked readers to vote for their preferred choice, with the proviso that we still have the final say. Choosing the annual winners is a labour of love because that’s what it takes to get a bunch of DM editors to decide whether they agree or disagree with the choices of 13,000 readers.  Over the next few days, we shall republish online all the results in various categories. – Heather Robertson, DM168 editor

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R25.