A KwaZuma-Natal cop maybe made the news, but Baby Brown lives it

Ah, Chief Dwasaho! In the Republic of the Gupta, fewer things carry the scent of credibility. Take the National Press Club’s decision to crown a police officer from KwaZuma-Natal, Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, as the 2025 Newsmaker of the Year.

Pray tell, why must a man who conducted a briefing in military fatigues, flanked by masked men with automatic weapons, and told the nation that his officers were criminals in uniform be celebrated as if he had liberated the Union Buildings?

Perhaps I misunderstood the job of a provincial police commissioner. Was it not to combat crime, investigate, compile dockets and send them to the National Procrastination Authority? Instead, a police officer stood before the khawtry (sic), told us rot had opened a branch office at police HQ, and boom, he won an award. Huh?

My leader, let’s pause on this ill-named outfit, the National Press Club. What do they do every day, clubbing? Is this an association of men and women of ill repute, with an affinity for high-risk sexual escapades? Are they famous for the use and abuse of amber liquids, cultivating alleged sources in dingy motel rooms where women of the night wear skimpy dresses and boys with baggy pants signal with their fingers: “Cocaine here, score?”

Now these are the same people that, as a khawtry, we must accept as the judges of who is the Newsmaker of the Year? Where was the club (gone fishing?) when the greatest journalist of all editions, Piet Rampedi, invented the decuplets (Tembisa 10) and almost won an international award? Yet he was ignored at home.

I insist our heroes are hiding in plain sight, yet the club does not see them. Perhaps that explains our dismal performance in the Global IQ Index. Our beloved Republic of Gupta ranks 193rd in the World IQ Index of my imagination. We aren’t embarrassed.

Why should we be? We do not need international recognition for our confusion. For that we have Parliament, the City of Johannesburg, commissions, the National Press Club and adults who can look at the same national circus and still award the wrong clown.

This anomaly began years ago when, as a khawtry, we laughed while a man purporting to be our president, uBaba kaDuduzane, one Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, stood before the House of Nothingness trading as the National Assembly, cleared his throat, adjusted his spectacles with constitutional middle-finger creativity, giggled, then repeated the performance for nine years.

Will the real Newsmaker of the Year please stand up?

Lights, camera, action: ladies and gentlemen, I have the pleasure of announcing the true 2025 Newsmaker of the Year: alleged political fixer, information peddler and businessman, Mr Oupa “Baby Brown” Mogotsi, a man of many lives. He delivered the performance of a lifetime, not just a one-hour press briefing.

Baby Brown is the only citizen with two birth dates, both of which appear to be recognised by Home (aka Horror) Affairs. His mother, now deceased, was said to be 12 years older than him and nine years older than his sister.

Does Lieutenant General Mkhwanazi have two birth dates? Is he a contact agent, that mysterious nomenclature that appears to exist somewhere between intelligence jargon, taxi-rank gossip and a man with airtime? Did he allegedly stage his own assassination, boom, then survive it like a low-budget Hollywood hero?

Does he own a gun with a history of successful assassinations? Is he now facing perjury and other charges? Was his bail drama made more delicious by the simple question of where exactly the man lives?

My leader, this Baby Brown is a genius. Pashasha performance. Hollywood stuff. Trevor Noah must sit down and take notes.

Mkhwanazi gave a press briefing to the khawtry. Baby Brown gave us a national “how to win an award” curriculum. Mkhwanazi made allegations. Baby Brown became the allegation, the footnote, the affidavit, the plot twist, the alleged contact agent and the man whose life now reads like a docket written by a journalist with an incomplete undergraduate degree at 2am.

So, the National Press Club got it wrong. The plaque may belong to Mkhwanazi. But the year belonged to Baby Brown. His Newsmaker Award citation for 2025 reads thus: “He emptied himself for the Gupta Republic. He made a national spectacle move beyond press briefing rooms and into the theatre of the absurd.

“He survived an assassination allegedly initiated by him, against him, all by himself. He rose through the shadowy ranks of police intelligence without the burden of matric, with the long shadow of a prior criminal record doing curriculum support. He gave us two birth dates, one Home (Horror) Affairs miracle, and an alleged bereavement involving a mother who, by his own arithmetic, was only 12 years older than him.

“Judges commended Baby Brown for his gift of the gab. He confused police investigators about his real address, making it easy for the magistrate to deny him bail. This is despite officers, ironically linked to Mkhwanazi’s pet project, the political killings task team, having raided some of his alleged houses and businesses, and arrived somewhere to arrest him, yet still they could not tell where he lived. Neither could he. He exists twice at Home (Horror) Affairs, perhaps at four addresses.

“Then he told the very commission investigating police capture and the infiltration of the criminal justice system by cartels to go to hell, repeatedly saying: ‘I refuse to incriminate myself.’ The only guy to testify while the arresting officers sat in the gallery. Yet he was arrested on the highway. He is our star, a hero, and the real 2025 Newsmaker of the Year.”

My leader, this isn’t a citation. It’s a national syllabus written in the grammar of gunpowder, confusion and crime intelligence.

Till next week, my leader. Let Baby Brown win it. This khawtry deserves at least one honest award for dishonest confusion. DM

Bhekisisa Mncube is an award-winning columnist and author.

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