IT’S been a long road to the post of Minster of Safety and Security for Charles Nqakula, but the 50-year-old has held a wide range of posts that should prepare him for the demanding portfolio.
CHARLES Nqakula, the national chairman of the South African Communist Party, succeeds the late Steve Tshwete to the key Cabinet post of safety and security.
Nqakula was born on September 13, 1952. He attended primary school in Cradock and matriculated in Lovedale.
He worked as a waiter and later as a clerk in the department of Bantu Education and then became a journalist. He reported for several publications, including the Daily Dispatch in East London where he remained until he was placed under a banning order in 1981.
According to his official biography, the apartheid authorities revoked the order in 1982 because the village he lived in fell into the Ciskei homeland which gained so-called independence in 1981.
Nqakula was declared a prohibited immigrant unable to enter South Africa. He became a member of the Union of Black Journalists and was elected its vice-president in 1976.
The union was banned in October 1977 in a government crackdown on organisations supporting the Black Consciousness movements. Nqakula was frequently detained either by South African or Ciskeian authorities.
In September 1983 he was elected publicity secretary of the United Democratic Front (UDF). He left South Africa and underwent military training in Angola and joined the ANC’s armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. He received further military training in the then Soviet Union and East Germany.
Nqakula was infiltrated back into South Africa as one of the commanders of Operation Vula, with a mission to build viable underground and military structures, and served as commander in the Western Cape.
He emerged from the underground when he was granted amnesty by the government in 1991. Nqakula was appointed SACP general secretary after the assassination of Chris Hani and was elected to the ANC’s national executive committee in 1994. A close confidante of President Thabo Mbeki he was elected as the president’s parliamentary counsellor and was later promoted to deputy minister of home affairs, when Lindiwe Sisulu was appointed Intelligence Minister.
Nqakula composes choral music and writes poetry in his spare time. – Sapa