A 30-year-old black woman. Dineo Mokwele.
Admin assistant at BMW. 12 qualifications.
She applied for a job. She was successful.
 
Then came the crosshairs. Paul O’Sullivan said it out loud: “A 28 year old admin assistant from BMW parachuted to a brigadier.”
 
That’s when the charges were formulated.
That’s when an open invitation became high-intensity intelligence warfare.
 
The issue is not one angry white man of pensionable age. The issue is a corrupt system of whiteness authored to deny black life peace, relief or living.
 
Ask yourself:
How did a job opportunity become a crime scene? What desperate agendas could not stomach a black woman rising?
 
The question spotlights selective feminist outrage. They march, they chant, they trend — but not for Mokwele.
 
Black life knows no peace, relief or living.
 
If Mokwele was white, the stink of how she was treated would be rising to high heavens. The nation would smell it. No nostrils would miss it.
But when it happens to people who walk in her skin, it is fair game.
 
No Imbokodo salutations.
No gender equality outcry.
No women power enthusiasts.
No chant of “wathint’ abafazi, wathint’ imbokodo”
 
If you are made to believe SA is a country of possibilities, know which side of the colour line you fall on.
 
Know whose child you are. Lift your parents’ name. But be mindful of snide questions: “Who do you think you are?”
 
God’s child, tell them:
The Supreme Being knows you. The Supreme Being loves you and your people, just the way you are. Do not go changing for acceptance. You are young, gifted, black, and beautiful — as Nina Simone told us in song.
 
And don’t be fooled by those who want to be rewarded as “blacks” through expedient BEE, but refuse to fight as blacks to extol its liberating values. They are fair-weather blacks.
 
Be black for all seasons: in victory or in defeat.
Be real black for the good of the cause: to reclaim your humanity. The SAPS needs the crime-fighting skills that dodgy men and women in power dreaded being enlisted into the state for its incapacitation.
 
Had it not been for the saving grace of the work of the Madlanga Commission, the hard-earned qualifications Mokwele richly possesses would have seen her remain deposited on a crime scene manufactured by reputedly crime-fighters at IDAC – the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption.
 
Headed by retired Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, the commission was established by President Cyril Ramaphosa in July 2025.
 
The Commission’s mandate is to inquire into Criminality, Political Interference, and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System. The focus of the investigation is high-level state compromise and organised crime infiltration in South Africa.
As for IDAC, its state of independence is not convincing. Directorate, yes, it is. But unfolding disclosures make IDAC more of a corruption-dispenser than a corruption-buster.
 
Fighting against corruption, the open review currently putting IDAC under scrutiny battles to paint a picture in the affirmative. Instead of holding the wayward accountable, the cumulative perception is that IDAC has been a haven where corruption is not bereft of enablement.
 
IDAC’s brand association with corruption appears more for it than against it. The cruel injustice meted out to Mokwele evidently nullified her incoming celebration as a young, gifted and black woman.
 
That the tables were turned to see Mokwele redeemed to fight to get her job back is credit to carefully sought-after facts assembled by the Madlanga Commission. Her crucifixion had no backing of the proven sins for which her incarceration was premeditated by IDAC.
 
For that miraculous comeback, credit goes to the Madlanga Commission. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) officially dropped all fraud and corruption charges against Mokwele and Crime Intelligence boss Dumisani Khumalo on Friday, August 21, 2026, at the Pretoria Magistrates’ Court. The charges against the two were dropped alongside five other co-accused individuals.
 
It is not the crowning moment for the commission yet. But preparations for the crowns for each commissioner’s head to fit, need not be put on hold.
 
As the Madlanga Commission ups its investigative ante, what collective noun would best fit to describe the Madlanga Commission being a mixed bag of the bench and bar?
 
The bench-bar hybrid to make up a collective noun does not quite work. It is in a league of its own, others believe it is.
 
One thing certain is that it has impressed a degree of thoughtful mass appeal whose captivating educational value to the viewing public in matters pertaining to law has enlisted unreserved trust. There is something dogged about that which should make all watchdog bodies sit up to its compelling exemplarity.
 
Remember how ‘they’, you know who, described Gerrie Nel? The bulldog, they knighted Nel.
 
The stage for his stardom was set for a celebrated exit — to champion the weaponised lopsided rule of law, to put black corruptees in their place, with private prosecution by parachuting into the Afriforum prosecuting team to lead.
 
The non-comprehending saw the move no longer for its racist pursuit, ‘but rule of law’ – which coincidentally saw black culprits on the receiving end of the ‘correctional’/punitive long arm of the law wielded by Afriforum. In the eyes of Afriforum, whites are paragons of probity spotlessly walking on water.
 
Its zeal for private prosecution is yet to bring white corruption to the bench – reinforcing the racist stereotype that criminal capability is, in its books, marked black. Its cockeyed pursuit for justice is too obvious to be missed.
 
This lopsidedness has consistent resonance with biased corporate media perception-shaping enterprise now: the manufacture of angels and devils.
 
Afriforum is learning nothing from the Madlanga Commission to teach the old bulldog – well endowed with the benefits of black land dispossession – there is justifiable reason for restoration, reparation and relief that Afriforum is dead against in the name of the law.
 
The bulldog is vested in the preservation of the legacy of the past to learn new tricks for attraction of laudable evenhandedness.
 
On the other hand, Commissioner Sesi Baloyi’s doggedness on Madlanga’s bench-bar hybrid panel, the stakes in the colour scheme do not fit the ease of dominant culture endorsement to be given the same celebrated honours, as is the rest comprising the full complement of izinja ze-game – the top dogs of the game.
 
They represent optics that are difficult to accord the undeniable competence that has marked the commission out for excellence.
 
That there is the presence of womanhood, humanity and blackness to this excellence is what ‘they’ are struggling with to write home about.
 
Otherwise the lionising titles would have long been coined, personality profiles serialised in media, and supportive magazines churned out for top billing.
 
The point is, citizens, recognise the work amongst and within the ranks of your own black people, even when those outside delay with the honours. And when ‘they’ grudgingly finally do the honours, it should be because you were not in doubt in the first place.
 
Remember how — the perception shifters — in unison was ‘their’ response to General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s 06 July 2025 Press Conference: “Where is the evidence?”
 
Has evidence not been plunging its fingers into the wounds of doubters?
 
The doubting Thomases are not all ready to say: “What we asked for is actually overwhelming.” Sorry is just the hard word to say.
 
Dear people of the South, know your star performers for this country’s sake, long before the validators-in-chief patronisingly move their lips in acknowledgement.
 
Imbokodo is imbokodo wherever it lands its weight of significance. Don’t outsource our crowns. Knight your own deservedly.

Oupa Ngwenya is a writer and corporate strategist.