The obvious question after Enyinna Nkem-Abonta denounced the Democratic Alliance as racist after crossing to the African National Congress was: What’s new?
Nigerian-born Nkem-Abonta and three other black DA MPs who defected recently justified their move by branding the DA anti-black.
The claim is hardly original — so why did he join the party? Interviewed this week, Nkem-Abonta said he thought he could “influence it [the DA] from within”.
An alternative explanation is that he used the DA as a Trojan Horse to land himself an ANC position. The DA says he is now “singing for his supper”.
“The truth is that Nkem-Abonta has financial problems and cannot survive on his MP’s salary,” said DA chief whip Douglas Gibson. “He has a lifestyle he can’t afford. I predict he won’t stay long in Parliament; the ANC will send him to some parastatal where he can earn more.”
DA leader Tony Leon said he could not understand why a man abused and told to go back to Nigeria by ANC MPs was now sitting cheek by jowl with “the nationalists and xenophobes”.
In his DA incarnation, Nkem-Abonta also consistently attacked the ANC’s lack of economic empowerment policy and its concept of a “developmental state”.
But Nkem-Abonta insists he has been misunderstood. Policies he tried to articulate had been drowned out because the DA lacked credibility.
“In the ANC, my voice will have credibility. People will say; this is Dr Abonta, let’s hear what he has to say.”
He emphasised that the DA has lost its only black members of substance. DA deputy leader Joe Seremane was a lame duck, always overruled by Gibson, his junior.
“Transformation is not slow in the DA. There is no transformation at all,” he commented.
Nkem-Abonta came to South Africa in 1994 after obtaining a doctorate in applied economics, with distinction, from the French University of Paris-Dauphine.
Before joining Parliament last year he taught economics at the University of Pretoria and worked as the policy and research head of former enterprise development agency Ntsika, for the Financial and Fiscal Commission and for the KwaZulu-Natal treasury.
Nkem-Abonta said he left the DA largely because its highest decision- making structure, the federal council, was packed with whites. A formula provided for larger representation for those coming from areas with most DA support — effectively marginalising blacks.
He only found out about the clause after joining. “I took steps to expunge it, but was defeated. I then decided in conscience I could not make the DA my political home.”
Nkem-Abonta also told Rapport the DA stood no chance electorally unless it transformed. Gibson reprimanded him, telling him to stick to his trade and industry portfolio.
Nkem-Abonta said he was shocked to discover that, besides their parliamentary salaries, senior DA leaders such as Leon and Helen Zille received salaries from the party. “Even the ANC doesn’t do that,” he declared. Gibson replied that DA leaders received a small phone and travel allowance.
On the claims that the DA was anti-black, Gibson said it was easy to play the race card because it did the most damage. He accused Nkem-Abonta of lying about the federal council formula, saying he had never raised the issue and that the DA’s new constitution was adopted almost unanimously.