Helpful New Year’s resolutions for SA's infamous public figures and the people who need them the most

The dawning of a new year offers an opportunity to start afresh and renew good intentions. Daily Maverick respectfully offers some suggestions for public figures who intend to turn over a new leaf in 2024.

For Jacob Zuma:

Every year I say that I’m going to focus on Nkandla and the grandkids, and every year I simply can’t resist getting drawn into nonsense.

For 2024, I can absolutely commit to neither taking a single journalist to court, nor trying to get Judge Raymond Zondo removed as chief justice, or pursuing any other of my nutty legal side projects.

Instead, I shall revel in the extraordinary, undeserved good fortune of my remission of sentence by the prisons commissioner and maybe tutor adorable schoolkids in chess or something. 

For Busisiwe Mkhwebane:

It’s been a turbulent year for me, as I lost one fairly high-profile job but gained my true calling as an EFF MP. In 2024, I pledge to do none of the following: tweet about my ultimate vindication through a Higher Power; contract Dali Mpofu to represent me in any legal matter; keep on banging on about currency manipulation.

Instead, I will embrace my short-lived career as a parliamentarian, which will inevitably end as a result of ego clashes with the Freedom Fighter big boys.

Thereafter, I will join former University of Cape Town vice-chancellor Mamokgethi Phakeng as an influencer for Cypriot cryptocurrency businesses. 

For John Steenhuisen:

In 2023, I had to face up to the fact that almost nobody in the Multi-Party Charter wanted me as the coalition’s presidential candidate, which has prompted some soul-searching about what the other parties can see that the DA can’t.

In 2024, I promise to spend more time journalling in order to continue this journey of self-reflection on whether I am, in fact, the most appropriate possible candidate to serve as head of state of South Africa.

For fake doctor Matthew Lani:

My stethoscope is going in the bin. Ditto my fake scrubs. Ditto my fake Helen Joseph Hospital locker. Ditto all my framed fake medical certificates. Ditto all the fraudulent online exchanges I faked with medical authority figures to make me look legit.

Furthermore, I will be deleting TikTok come 31 December and will be confining my social media activities to platforms nobody takes seriously, like X.

In future, I will play out my doctor fantasies like everyone else: by compulsively googling all my imaginary symptoms and watching Grey’s Anatomy again.

For US ambassador to South Africa Reuben Brigety:

Boy oh boy, not my finest year. In May I — quite embarrassingly — told the entire world that I would “bet my life” on South Africa having sent weapons to Russia on the Lady R. Turns out, it probably didn’t. And although my enchanting bow ties have seen me through trouble before, this was a sticky one. Moral of the story: in 2024 I will refrain from using the threat of my own mortality as a diplomatic bargaining chip.

For Thabo Bester and Dr Nandipha Magudumana:

Our shared New Year’s Resolutions for 2024 are the same as every year: don’t rape, murder or defraud anyone; don’t escape from prison under the pretext of dying in a fire; definitely don’t try to go on the run as an international fugitive. In 2023, we missed the mark on, wow, a whole bunch of those.

For Paul Mashatile’s bodyguards:

Although we recognise that protecting the deputy president of South Africa is a deadly serious task, we acknowledge that, upon reflection, this year we may have gone a teensy bit too far. The whole scene in July where we violently beat up three civilians was, looking back, on the side of OTT.

Our plans for 2024 include group therapy, anger management classes, meditation, breathwork and that thing where you heal your inner child. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R29.