Jean-Jacques Cornish

Activist singer and ex MP accuses football boss and former ANC mayor of raping her

South African singer, activist and ex-MP Jennifer Ferguson alleges the country’s former football boss and prominent member of the African National Congress Danny Jordaan raped her 24 years ago.

Ferguson says she was motivated by the #me too movement of women naming their violators.

Danny Jordaan headed the organizing body for the 2010 Football World Cup in South Africa.

He was Mayor of Nelson Mandela metropole until was ousted by the opposition Democratic Alliance two years ago.

He’s not responded to Jennifer Ferguson’s allegation.

Ferguson fell foul of the apartheid regime for opposing conscription and supporting those forced to fight against the liberation forces.

Her activism was recognized by then ANC leader Nelson Mandela who put her on the ruling party’s list to become an MP.

She says she was in her hotel room celebrating this when Danny Jordaan entered and raped her.

Dazed and confused, she failed to report this because she feared it might be though she had provoked the attack.

Speaking from Sweden, where she now lives, Ferguson says there is something in South Africa where the wounded male psyche is expressing itself violently.

She says South Africa’s had a scourge of rape and child abuse since colonial times.

She feels she’s part of a much bigger collective need for truth in order to heal and forgive,

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Jean-Jacques Cornish is a journalist and broadcaster who has been involved in the media all his adult life.

Starting as a reporter on his hometown newspaper, he moved briefly to then Rhodesia before returning to South Africa to become a parliamentary correspondent with the South African Press Association. He was sent to London as Sapa’s London editor and also served as special correspondent to the United Nations. He joined the then Argus group in London as political correspondent.

Returning to South Africa after 12 years abroad, he was assistant editor on the Pretoria News for a decade before becoming editor of the Star and SA Times for five years.

Since 1999 he’s been an independent journalist writing and broadcasting – mainly about Africa – for Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape
Talk, Radio France International, PressTV, Radio Live New Zealand, Business Day, Mail & Guardian, the BBC, Agence France Press,
Business in Africa, Leadership, India Today, the South African Institute for International Affairs and the Institute for Security Studies.

He has hosted current affairs talk shows on Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape Talk. He appears as an African affairs pundit on SABC Africa and CNBC Africa.
He lectured in contemporary studies to journalism students at the Tshwane University of Technology and the University of Pretoria.

He speaks on African affairs to corporate and other audiences.
He has been officially invited as a journalist to more than 30 countries. He was the winner of the 2007 SADC award for radio journalism.

He’s been a member of the EISA team observing elections in Somaliland, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Egypt and Tunsiai.

In October 2009 he headed a group of 39 African journalists to the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Peoples’ Republic of China.

In January 2010 he joined a rescue and paramedical team to earthquake struck Haiti.

He is immediate past president of the Alliance Francaise of Pretoria.

Jean-Jacques is a director of Giant Media. The company was given access to Nelson Mandela in his retirement years until 2009.
He is co-producer of the hour-long documentary Mandela at 90 that was broadcast on BBC in January 2009.