In what is being hailed as one of the most significant legal decisions in South African history the Constitutional Court has jailed disgraced former President Jacob Zuma for 15 months for contempt of court.

Zuma has five days to hand himself in to police.

Failing this, Police Minister Bheki Cele is ordered to do whatever necessary to ensure Zuma goes to jail.

This is a first time a former South African president has been sentenced to imprisonment,

Not even leaders during the apartheid era suffered such punishment.

Zuma defied a Constitutional Court order to appear before the Zondo Commission into state corruption.

He had earlier walked out of the commission, refusing to appear again if Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, whom he claims has close familial ties with him, recuses himself.

sub head Accuses state of politically motivated camapaign

Zuma accuses the state of mounting a politically motivated campaign  against him.

Zuma faces corruption charges in the KwauluNatal High court involving five billion euros misappropriated before he was president

He has rounded on the Constitutional Court saying it behaved like an apartheid institution

Acting Chief Justice Sisi Khampepe, reading the 7-2 majority judgment,  regretted that Zuma “has elected to make unmeritorious, vituperative remarks calculated to impugn the integrity of the judiciary called his remarks

She said it would serve no purpose to impose a suspended sentence on Zuma in the hope of getting him to comply because that would only give him further reason to delay.

She awarded unitive costs against Zuma.

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Even the Constitutional Court judges could not agree

The ex-president’s spokesman Mzwanele Manyi say if the nine Constitutional Court judges could not agree on a ruling, it was surely not possible for a layman to accept it.

He would not comment on the whereabouts of Zuma who was not in the Constitutional Court and said a more comprehensive response to the judgement would be made later

Split judgements are commonplace in the Constitutional Court and even the minority judgment agreed that Zuma was guilty of contempt of court.

The ANC military win Umkhonto We Sizwe has sent members to Zuma’s at Nkanadla and vowed to protect him from arrest.

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Daughter says he is in good spirits

Zuma’s daughter Dudu Zuma Sambudia says he has spoken to her father since the judgment and found him him in good spirits.

He plans to hand himself to  police at  Nkandla and members of his family will accompany him to Gauteng, which is currently closed to outsiders because of stricter COVID 19 lockdown restrictions imposed this week.

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The woman, who is 52 years younger than Zuma, gave birth to his 23rd child on his birthday 12 days ago.

As the national treasurer and media spokesman for the Nomkhubulwane Culture and Youth Development Organisation, Nonkanyiso Conco is on record supporting virginity tests for unmarried  Zulu  women.

It’s program called She Conquers is designed to counter the culture of young women taking sugar daddies, known in South African parlance as blessers, to supply their material needs.

Conco was given until yesterday (Monday) to resign after reports of her romance with Zuma.

She was accused of failing to disclose her relationship with Zuma and not being transparent about their affiliation.

Conco admits she has been spending time with  Zuma at his Nkandla home home since she was 19. He has promised that on leaving office he will make her his seventh wife.

Deputy chairperson of the organisation Leonora Mathe confirms that Conco has handed in her resignation letter, adding that it has been accepted.

She Conquers was established by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2016 to tackle issues facing women in South Africa, including the rising rate of HIV infection among adolescent girls and young women; teenage pregnancy; and gender-based violence.

Mathe says Conco’s affiliation with Zuma is against what the organisation aims to achieve.

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The cattle breeder says Zuma personally signed for the beasts that were delivered to his personal home Nkandla.

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The 24 cows and one bull worth more than 100 000 euros were paid for with public money and were supposed to have gone to emerging farmers in North West province,

Cattle breeder Lucas Msiza says he was instructed by NorthWest provincial premier Supra Mahumapelo to deliver them to Zuma’s home in KwaZulu/Natal.

NorthWest province was torn by violent protests last week calling for the premier to be sacked for corruption

President Cyril Ramaphosa came home early from the Commonwealth summit in London to deal with the crisis.

He says government is looking as serious issues in NorthWest concerning the premier’s position.

The far-left Economic Freedom Fighters have called on the Ombudsman, known in South Africa as the Public Protector, to probe the allegation of the gift cattle and to force Zuma to pay back the money if there is any impropriety.

Since being ousted in mid-February, Zuma has remained in the headlines.

Last week, 24 year old Nonkanyiso Conco said she had given birth to his 23rd child on April 12 which was Zuma’s 76th birthday.

She says he plans to make her his seventh bride.

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Other opposition parties, the United Democratic Movement and the Congress of the People have already supported the EFF legal bid to force Parliamentary Baleka Mbete to introduce impeachment proceedings against the president.

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In March, the Economic Freedom Fighters initiated impeachment proceedings after the Constitutional Court found President Jacob Zuma did not uphold the Constitution.

The court finding relates to Zuma’s failure  to implement the Public Protector’s remedial action that he repay some of the public money spent on security upgrades at his private Nkandla home.

The DA says after reviewing the arguments made by the other applicants in the EFF case, it can provide new information.

It’s now applied to the Constitutional Court to make written submissions and oral argument before the matter is heard on 5 September.

Chairperson of the DA’s federal executive, James Selfe, says the matter presents an opportunity for the court to provide clear guidelines on impeachment proceedings.

The case is only one attempt to remove Zuma from office.

The National Assembly is expected to vote on a motion of no confidence in him on 8 August.

The Constitutional Court has found that Mbete is empowered to have this matter decided on a secret vote by MPs

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He leaves behind a still simmering row caused by the Zelda la Grange, the former personal assistant to Zuma’s late predecessor Nelson Mandela, saying she would feel more welcome in France than in her native South Africa.

La Grange says potential white investors from Europe and the United State should be told they’re not welcome in South Africa.

Zelda la Grange’s apologised for any hurt her remarks might have caused but she has not withdrawn her assertion that President Jacob Zuma’s making whites the scapegoat for South Africa’s ills.

Deputy telecommunications minister Hlengiwe Mkize proposes she and la Grange meet to go back to basics and discuss the evils of colonialism.

Zuma will have his work cut out at Davos selling the country’s national development plan in the teeth of new evidence that race remains a highly sensitive and potentially disruptive issue in South Africa 21 years after the ANC took power.

The ruling party’s incensed at a Constitutional Court decision overturning an election court ban on the opposition Democratic Alliance saying Zuma has stolen from the people by improperly enriching himself from the publicly funded upgrade of security at his private residence in Kwazulu/Natal.

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They maintain they were acting within the rules of the legislature when they disrupted proceedings last week by calling on President Jacob Zuma to repay public money spent on upgrading his private home Nkandla.

Economic Freedom Fighter MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi says the decision not to suspend them vindicates the noisy action EFF members took in the house last week that led to the speaker Baleka Mbete calling in police to remove them.

Ndlozi maintains he and his EFF colleague will continue robustly to demand answers from the executive about public money unduly spent on Nkandla.

Constitutional experts believe the speaker was out of line calling on police to clear the house and that however disruptive the EFF MPs were, they are protected by South Africa’s basic law.

Mbete maintains she will call in police again if the EFF MPs are disorderly.

She was expected toask parliament at its next sitting today (Tuesday) to suspend the MPs who attend parliamentary session dressed in boiler suits and maids uniforms which they say shows solidarity with the poor.

She has now deferred the matter to parliament’s powers and privileges committee.

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Zuma says he’s able to this because he’s seen the provisional report into the affair by the Special Investigating Unit.

The chief whip of the ruling African National Congress is among those who’ve welcomed this development.

The controversy has run since ombudsman Thuli Madonsela reported that President Jacob Zuma had been personally enriched by some of the roughly 20 million euro security improvements to his private home in KwaZulu-Natal.

Madonsela maintains Zuma should pay some of the money back to the public purse.

The ANC’s used its majority to stall a parliamentary inquiry into the affair.

Zuma says in a letter to the Speaker Baleka Mbete that he now has the provisional report from the head of the Special Investigating Unit.

It’s given him the insight he needs to give proper consideration to the matter.

Accordingly he’ll give her a comprehensive and final report within the next 30 working days.

Chairman of the opposition Democratic Alliance’s federal executive James Selfe, welcomes Zuma’s announcement, saying it indicates some long overdue progress in the matter.

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