That Australian,” Sibongile Kenneth Sonjica muses, “is killing us with money. He is turning us into dogs. Two dogs can play together nicely, but throw a bone between them and they will fight.”
The 58-year-old Sonjica is a 15-year veteran of Gauteng’s gold mining industry and returned to his Mpondoland birthplace, in the Eastern Cape, after his 1997 retrenchment. His only fond memories of those times are of him in the ring – he was a useful boxer in mine hostel tournaments.
“That Australian” is Mark Caruso, a Perth-based venture capitalist and Executive Chairman of Mineral Commodities (MRC), who is going toe-to-toe with a community opposing a proposed 22-kilometer long and 1.5-kilometer wide strip mine of coastal dune titanium deposits within its midst.
“The mine will destroy the land forever; I know this from working on mines. It will not be possible for the cows to graze, there will be soil erosion and you cannot live close to a mine. I know mines,” says Sonjica.
There is no middle ground between the pro and anti-mining lobbies, this fight is all about the last man standing; there will be no split decision. Titanium is tough, lightweight and has the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any metal. It provides for the demands of the 21st century’s new technologies from the medical and sporting fields through to the aeronautic industries.
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Facing off is the Amadiba community who live on communal land with collective agency. It is a land tenure system that has survived such interlopers as Shaka Zulu, British colonialism (Mpondoland was the last territory to be annexed by the British in 1894) and patronizing apartheid-era rural improvement projects that became a catalyst for the Pondo Revolt in the late 1950s.
South African Pulp and Paper Industries (Sappi) misjudged the land arrangement in 1999 when it began to implement a tree planting project by paying some residents a cultivation rental fee. In what became known as the Gum Tree Rebellion, 14 homesteads of those participating in the initiative were razed in two weeks of violence. The community saw neither development value nor any synergy with the multinational’s land use.
Nonhle Mbuthuma, the 38-year-old spokesperson for the Amadiba Crisis Committee (ACC) that opposes the mine, went into hiding following the March 22 killing of the organization’s chairperson Sikhosiphi “Bazooka” Rhadebe.
“My grandfather was a leader during the Pondo Revolt. What I learned from him is that it is very important that if you want to live a better life, you have to protect the land,” says Mbuthuma.
The ACC wants economic development through an eco-tourism model on the economic ethos of a rising tide lifts all boats, allowing for both small-scale farming and the amaMpondo culture to flourish. The Pondoland Centre of Endemism, which will be impacted by any mine operations, is recognized as one of the world’s 235 richest eco-regions.
“People think we are poor. We do not feel we are poor. We feel richer than other people. Here we have land. You can go to other places and people have nothing. We have crops and cattle and bigger plans for tourism. In cities, people are poor. Caruso says we are poor, but he is from the city,” says Siyabonga Ndovela, a 23-year-old supporter of the ACC.
The ACC says the promise of 600 mining jobs will come at the expense of creating a strip of desert stretching between the Mzamba and Mtentu rivers, pollute the marine environment, as well as arable and grazing land far beyond its area of operation, exhaust and choke fresh water sources, displace communities and serve as nothing more than a burial mound for a community.
Zeka Mnyamana is the spokesperson for MRC’s Black Economic Empowerment partner, the Xolobeni Community Empowerment Company (XOLCO). Mbuthuma labels Mnyamana as “a traitor”, as she says he once opposed mining, saying there is no reason why mining and eco-tourism cannot co-exist. “Tourists go to Johannesburg and there are mines there.”
The decades-long struggle against the proposed mine is not without its consequences. The corrosive effect is in the acts of betrayal and alleged murder calcifying positions and redefining relationships into pro or anti-mining camps. It is no glib assessment to say this could emerge into an internecine conflict in its most sincere form – destructive, deadly, among family and inherited by coming generations as blood feuds.
Sinegugu Zukulu, the Eastern Cape Environmental Program Manager for the NGO Conservation South Africa, and originally from Amadiba’s Baleni area, about 15 kilometers inland from the proposed mining site, acts as an ACC advisor.
“The Amadiba are a clan, we are all related,” he says.
His opponent is Zamile Qunya, who head ups XOLCO.
“We are brothers, his great-grandfather was also mine. We were friends from Standard Six and beyond school,” Zukulu says of a friendship since soured.
“We have never had a direct fallout. When we meet, we meet as brothers. But we are no longer friends. It is the things he says in my absence, not in my presence, like ‘Sinegugu is a troublemaker’ and lately he has been spreading lies that I started XOLCO with him.”
“The social fabric of the community is being destroyed. When say an uncle dies and is pro-mining you are still obliged to attend the funeral. But people end up not eating the food for fear of being poisoned,” he says.
There are accounts of women being assaulted by herdboys for accepting food parcels from pro-mining interests, unexplained fires razing tourist infrastructure, reports of cash handouts by mining interests in exchange for support and anti-mining activists subjected to police raids and harassment.
Russel Hartshorne, 32, concedes the opportunity for a community lease agreement for the Mtentu River Lodge Guest House in 2011 came about when Qunya was wearing two hats, as XOLCO representative and also chair of the eco-tourism community body, the Amadiba Coastal Communities Development Association Trust. The trust was on the cusp of signing a deal with a major player in the eco-tourism field, but it was rejected at the eleventh hour by Qunya.
Hartshorne and his business partner stepped into the gap with little capital and have a written agreement with the community, including profit share and local employment, but admits it has little validity.
“If the community says go, than we go,” he says.
The pro-mining lobby claims 80% of the 2,000 to 3,000 people directly impacted by the proposed mine support it. Anti-mining activists claim the same percentage is against it. A 2007 report by the South African Human Rights Commission said “despite a chronic lack of infrastructure, the majority of the affected community are not in favor of mining.” Mbizana municipality is ranked as South Africa’s worst performing local government by the research and advocacy group Good Governance Africa.
Sebenzani Mchebi, at the age of 73, lives on a homestead among arable fields and livestock within the proximity of the proposed mining operation with 32 other adults and “I don’t know how many children”.
“If they bring the machines here where will we live? Where will the animals get their grass? Our water will be poisoned. Where do we get land like this? It will be the end of our lives. The government does not care, they are on the side of mining,” she says.
“We are prepared to die for this land, everyone is. Bazooka is not the first person to die (three other anti-mining activists are believed to have been poisoned),” says Ndovela, who is facing a charge of the possession of an unlicensed firearm after police confiscated the weapon while he was on his way to a community blockade to prevent officials gaining access to the dune site.
“We have no say about our land. Our ancestors fought for this land. Why are we going to sell our land to Australia?” says Ndovela.
Caruso did not respond to detailed questions from FORBES AFRICA.

‘Our Ancestors Fought  For This Land.  Why Are We Selling  It To Australia?’

Two boreholes, drilled deep into the Karoo wilderness, have thrown fracking optimism into the garbage can. The core samples go by the mundane names of KZF-1 and KWV. They took weeks to drill and cost $2 million. Between them, they have thrown into doubt the dream of unearthing enough energy to power Africa.
The discovery was made by teams of researchers, from the Karoo Research Initiative (KARIN), who spent more than a year studying the vast wilderness in South Africa.
“The more we see, the more questionable the entire thing becomes, whether it will be profitable or not,” says Wlady Altermann, Head of Geology at the University of Pretoria, who inspected the core samples.
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Geologists found there is not as much shale gas in the Karoo as the government and energy companies claim. In 2009, Econometrix, South Africa’s largest independent macroeconomic consulting firm, believed there was 485 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas – the government and energy companies took this as gospel; it supported the case to open up the Karoo.
In May, research by Selwyn Adams, Principal Geologist at Petroleum Agency South Africa, which licenses onshore and offshore gas exploration, says their best model was 183 tcf.
Now, an even more lean estimate has emerged from Doug Cole, Senior Specialist Scientist at the Council for Geoscience (CGS), a parastatal mandated to research South Africa’s geology. He says there could be as little as 32 tcf, a fraction of the bigger amount that caused all the excitement.
By comaprison, 72 tcf is in Mozambique’s Offshore Area 1, one of the most important natural gas accumulations discovered in the last 20 years. The discovery, made 200 kilometers offshore in the Rovuma basin, alone is enough to add $39 billion per year to Mozambique’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2035.
“Initially I think they just took the volume of the base and didn’t consider the dolerites. It was obviously much too much,” says Cole.
KARIN was merely studying the geology of the Karoo and stumbled on the evidence.
“We have not seen a rock yet that would produce enough organic matter to produce shale gas in large amounts,” says Altermann.
“The conclusion of KARIN’s boreholes throws doubt into the original claim of the fifth largest reservoir of shale gas. From these two boreholes, the presence of shale gas is questionable, but this does not mean these results will be the same on other sites.”
The dolerites found could make it even more expensive to get any shale gas out. Unlike the shale gas boomtowns of the United States, the Karoo is littered with these dolerites – high temperature rocks – which burn off gas before it can be fracked.
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These discoveries are likely to strengthen the case against fracking by farmers, who fear it could pollute water. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, uses millions of liters of water with a 1% mix of chemicals, to fracture the shale to release natural gas at depths of 1,500 meters. This could contaminate borehole water used by the farmers.
Unlocking the mystery of the risk to underground aquifers is Kate Robey, a 30-year-old hydrogeologist at the CGS.
“In the 1970s, a South African-based parastatal called Soekor was mandated to find oil. Shale wasn’t even known then. But, during those explorations they did find gas. It is based on this information from the 1970s that we think there may be shale now&#8230; It is old data that wasn’t even looking for shale.”
There were questions when Robey, who was on site when KARIN was drilling KZF-1, hit fresh water at 560 meters below the surface. They didn’t expect it.
“The Tankwa site, which went 560 meters, hit artesian water so fresh I couldn’t believe the probes giving me the results. I had to drink it myself. We never expected that. We expected the water to be more salty. It may even be that these deep aquifers are fresher than the shallow ones,” says Robey.
Although Robey says this is an anomaly, finding fresh water in Tankwa throws up more questions about fracking.
“Due to the sparse data we have on deep groundwater in South Africa (based on the Soekor holes) we expected groundwater at depths greater than 500 meters to be saline, which could be concerning if shale gas activities were to continue in the Karoo at great depths. If not properly managed or monitored, and there is interaction between the saline groundwater and the shallow aquifers in the Karoo, this could result in irreversible damage of the water.”
“However, on the converse, now that we found that there was fresh water at such depths, a lot more interesting questions and research needs to be undertaken. Such as can we use this hot water for geothermal energy or even as a future water resource?”
This is why Robey will be digging deeper in the heart of the so-called ‘sweet spot for fracking’ in the Karoo, near Beaufort West.
“We need to get these properties because if ever, one day, fracking does take place, it will prove if there is any pollution from the deep groundwater into the shallow.”
It could take up to 15 years to collect the data. In the researchers favor is the current oil price. The drop in commodity prices has given a vital lifeline for researchers to gather the data before legislation goes through. It needs to be above $70 a barrel to turn a profit from fracking; at the time of writing it is $47.17.
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Will fracking mean jobs?
“Let’s get rid of the rumors – fracking won’t benefit the lower class. The actual production through fracking would require high-end technology and expertise, which up to now, is not available in the country,” says Altermann.
“You don’t need people with shovels and hammers. It’s high technology stuff, skilled people will be flown in.”
A fracking future that seems far away.

The Fracking Future Fades

Any visitor to Palestine is guaranteed a few things. Delicious deep-fried balls of ground chickpeas inside pita bread, the call of the muezzin five times a day, a permeating strong smell of black coffee through a cacophony of hooting cars and shouting in Arabic. And getting lost.
Driving, especially through the bustling streets of the de facto capital Ramallah, is a nightmare. Not because the roads are particularly unsafe but because assistance comes in the form of no street names, no street signs and no house numbers. A colleague of mine spent the better part of a year paying the wrong electricity bill because, well, he couldn’t read Arabic and the bill kept arriving under his door. It turned out to be for another apartment in another street – neither his street nor apartment were named or numbered!
Only in the last seven years, following the Ramallah centenary celebrations, have street names caught on in the growing metropolis. Yasser Arafat, former chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, now has his square and dozens of Palestinian fighters have their streets. The criteria are simple – heroes, places and ideas supported by the Palestinian people.
So it’s no surprise that South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela has been given his spot – if anything, the  surprise is that it took so long. But residents say it was worth waiting for. The east of the city is now nestled in the shadow of Madiba’s towering figure – a six-meter, two-ton bronze statue with right fist raised.
The statue is the first of its kind outside South Africa and took artists Christina Salvodi, Lungisa Khala and Tanya Lee seven months to create – and another 30 days to get through Israeli customs. But that’s nothing, muses Ramallah’s Mayor Mussa Hadid, compared to the 27 years Mandela spent in prison.
“The erection of Mandela’s sculpture in Ramallah carries a symbolic significance,” he says. “Mandela was an international symbol of peace and a torch to people striving for freedom and liberty.”
A staunch supporter of the Palestinian struggle against Israel, Mandela once declared that, “We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.” It’s a view he repeated after warmly embracing Arafat in their first meeting in Zambia after his release in 1990.
“Like us, he is fighting against a unique form of colonization,” Mandela said of the Palestinian leader at the time, “and we wish him success in his struggle.”
Mandela is revered across the Arab and Palestinian world. The square now boasting his name is in a quiet part of the city and traffic here slows down to circle around his statue so drivers can get a good glance – looking upwards – of their hero. If you stand on tiptoes it’s almost possible to reach up high enough to touch his left hand.
Mamoun, a 19-year-old engineering student who lives not far from the now aptly renamed Mandela Square, exclaims, “He is our hero and it’s only right that a man who stood for the fight against oppression, now stands tall and proud in our city!”
Amira is another Ramallah resident who believes the square bearing Mandela’s name will become a major tourist attraction in her city.
“I am so excited that we have our own Mandela in Ramallah now,” she smiles. “Our struggle is like the struggle of South Africa – and hopefully he can watch over us just like he watched over his own people.”
Mandela’s relationship with Israel was more complicated. He was a firm supporter of the right of Jews to a national homeland, but he never forgot Israel’s support for the apartheid regime during the 1970s and 80s.
“We insist on the right of the State of Israel to exist within secure borders,” he remarked in 1993, but “with equal vigor” stressed support of “the Palestinian right to national self-determination.”
Mandela didn’t visit Israel during his presidency but agreed to receive an honorary doctorate from one of the country’s universities shortly after leaving office. He used the opportunity to impress upon the then newly elected Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak his concern about the conflict with the Palestinians and the failure of the Oslo peace process.
Israelis, like most people in the world, hold Mandela in high esteem but unsurprisingly, whereas the ceremony to unveil his statue in Ramallah received much attention in the South African and Palestinian press, it was hardly mentioned in the Israeli media.
Speaking at the inauguration, Johannesburg’s Mayor Parks Tau, who presented the statue as a gift from his city said, “Nelson Mandela himself would have been extremely proud of what has been done here today.”

Mandela Stands Tall Over People Fighting For Liberation

Every morning, as the sun rises over the deep blue of Hout Bay near Cape Town, you can catch a glimpse of one of the last survivors of the men who faced death with Nelson Mandela at the Rivonia Trial in 1964.
Denis Goldberg retired to the light and air of Hout Bay, maybe to banish the dark of his stinking Pretoria prison cell where he was incarcerated for 22 years. Here he learned a few sad notes to feed sad souls. As condemned men waited to hang, they would sing their last song. Goldberg taught himself to play along on guitar and recorder.
“I was never good enough to play by ear, but somehow when those men sang, the chords just came to me. When I left, I felt sad that no one was going to hear those notes from my recorder again,” he says.
Fast forward 50 years to a lighter world above the crashing surf of Hout Bay and yet there is no escape from the ills of South Africa.
“I read the negativity, day after day, because scandals sell newspapers; the newspapers which used to be a place of solid analysis for developing ideas and finding solutions to problems. What you read is the absurdity that South Africa is worse today, than what it was under apartheid. How can that be?”
On the walls around him is African art; an unspoken statement against the bleak walls of prison. Goldberg points to a portrait of an elegant black man writing in a book.
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“He’s not protesting; he’s not toyi-toying; he’s not at a political rally. It turns out that the artist is an anaesthetist and has presumably done a portrait of a colleague in a hospital, writing his diary at the end of the day. A white artist is painting an intellectual activity of a black South African. That for me reflects everything we fought for,” says Goldberg.
These pictures of hope contrast with the less hopeful picture of leadership in Africa.
“Perceptions are important in politics. I have to say President (Jacob) Zuma has played a heroic role in developing the country. He was a herd boy, who gained an education, one way or another, school education, by reading and reading. If you talk to him and speak to him off the cuff, he really is an extremely well-read person in politics. In a discussion, he is fluent and his ideas are fluent. His role in the ANC intelligence apparatus, it was enormous. Creating peace in KwaZulu-Natal, negotiating with leaders brought peace. Mandela started negotiations in Rwanda, Zuma brought them to a climax. That’s his ability. Now, I believe sadly, this circle around him is stealing the democracy of our people.”
Despite misgivings, Goldberg believes that the ANC is the only hope of closing the gap between the rich and poor.
“To oppose the crony economy we have allowed to develop; it’s not going to happen overnight, but we have to start.”
Goldberg says it’s high time to root out corruption.
“[In 1994], one of the first things that happened was new ANC members of Parliament demanded of Nelson Mandela a salary increase&#8230;When I said to leading members, ‘why are you looking for this huge increase in salaries, which puts you at the level of white management?’ Their answer was ‘do you think we are not worthy of it because we are black?’”
In the days when Goldberg fought for education, he never dreamed he would see students wreck universities.
“It angers me that students, who are supposed to be the intellectual leaders of the future, don’t think and don’t know our history. Don’t they understand the history of South Africa, don’t they understand how far we’ve come in only 20 years?&#8230; Students who throw excrement over a statue think they have solved a problem. Does that solve the problem of accommodation or worker’s wages? What does it create&#8230; disgust, and I hope they get charged.”
The protests at Parliament?
“We have serious problems and we reduce them to petty insults, its outrageous behavior. The politics in the media and in Parliament has become politics of personality and not issues.”
Amid the turmoil of politics, Goldberg has a silver lining of his own. He wants to build a center where children can dance, play music and paint in the sea breezes of Hout Bay
“When I watch kids out of the townships, with their patched best clothes, walking up and down with their violins, it’s a joy. Even if they don’t play the damned instrument properly, they had the opportunity to find themselves.”
A search he knew all too well, 50 years ago, when he played along to sad, condemned, voices.

Lament For A Stolen Dream

It was a warm day for winter in Pretoria when I arrived to interview South Africa’s Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, the man with one of the toughest jobs in African finance. He has to make cuts, balance the books, to stop the mighty South African economy falling over the cliff. This, following the crazy days of uncertainty in December when South Africa sacked Nhlanlha Nene; installed unknown Des van Rooyen; before retreating to the safe hands of Gordhan – finance minister between 2009 and 2014 – to steady the markets and resuscitate the currency. You could argue that a finger of one of those safe hands is in the dyke.
As the shafts of mid-morning light shone through the tall windows in the finance minister’s office, in the granite Treasury headquarters, it was getting warmer, but not as warm as the seat where Gordhan now sits.
In June, Gordhan helped South Africa stave off a downgrade, by the rating agencies, to junk status. If South Africa can show growth, prudence and greater fiscal discipline, it may escape a downgrade yet again at the end of the year.
The week of the interview was not a good one for growth in South Africa; it had just shown negative growth of -1.2%. Yet Gordhan, who chose his words very carefully, appeared more bullish than the economy.
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<h4>Forbes Africa: It’s been a rollercoaster six months, how are you holding up?</h4>
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Gordhan: I am used to rollercoasters in my life, so this is one more. This one has been very rewarding because the efforts that government has put in to join forces with business and labor have paid off as far as the first phase of our battle to remain outside of sub investment grade has been won. And largely through the joint efforts of all of us; and now we start the journey into the next five months which is a period where we must deliver on some of the things we have committed ourselves to. I am confident that as a country we will begin to do that because some of that momentum has already been building up.
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<h4>Forbes Africa: You avoided the downgrade to junk status; a lot of people are still saying the country has merely postponed it for another six months. How likely is that?</h4>
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Gordhan: It’s true that we have postponed it but you can’t call it mere postponement when you were about to fall over. Not falling over is a major and important victory for all of us; so it’s a question of  who is the narrative being created by; people who believe in a half full glass or a half empty glass… We still have investments coming in, we have kept to our fiscal targets and we will continue to actually do so. We will unite the key role players in this country behind the common program and we have got a few months to demonstrate we are capable of doing it. We have a clear program in terms of reforming key parts of this economy and making sure some of the key constraints are now taken out of the way.
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<h4>Forbes Africa: Look at the latest data and the economy contracted for the first quarter by 1.2%. Does that make your target that much harder to achieve? How much reform are we going to have to go through for the next five months to ultimately head for that 2% target?</h4>
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Gordhan: I set the 2% mark largely by saying we are going to get moving in the right direction. We all know that in terms of the National Development Plan, we ultimately want to move into the 5% terrain.
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<h4>Forbes Africa: Another question people are asking, as you know, civil service is about 50% of your budget, maybe less than that but it’s still a lot, I was with a lot of financial journalists last night and they were saying why doesn’t the minister cut civil service and save?</h4>
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Gordhan: How many more unemployed people do you want? Firstly, the cost of compensation is about R460 billion ($30 billion), currently that is about 37%, which is high. In the budget, we have said that we are now going to certain measures to start cutting that expenditure. Vacancies not being filled and the most recent report, that we have received from provinces, where a bulk of teachers and health staff are employed is very encouraging.
<h4>Forbes Africa: The ratings agencies have also stated that the risk of political instability, especially on the lead up to the August 3 municipal elections, could affect the economy.</h4>
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Gordhan: Elections happen as part of a democratic society in South African and elsewhere… We are nowhere near disruption but what we do require is for political leaders to recognize that there is a relationship between the way we conduct ourselves politically and the confidence in our economy that we create and today we live in a world where politics and the economy are closely related whether it’s here, Brazil or anywhere else in the world. The prospect of a particular candidate winning the elections in the Unites States is also giving people a wake-up call.
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<h4>Forbes Africa: You definitely can’t forecast the rand and I think that’s the problem right now; small businesses out there are saying they just need to know that there is some stability in the currency.</h4>
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Gordhan: Currency volatility is something that nobody has control over. There are mega forces and dynamics in the globe that influence what happens to a currency as much as there are domestic factors as well, so, look at what’s happening to the pound, so every day that something happens to the dollar, something happens to the rand which are not necessarily related to domestic considerations as well.
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<h4>Forbes Africa: In your efforts to reduce debt and cut expenditure, what kind of painful cuts do you think this country may be looking at in the next six months?</h4>
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Gordhan: We have made the cuts for this year and we have to look hard to find money for a zero increase for student fees, finding money for our subscription to the BRICS New Development Bank, and a few other items that need to be financed both as a result of expenditure cuts and managing the tax side. We have indicated, very transparently, that in the coming two years, we have to find R15 billion (around $1 billion) each year, either from the expenditure or the tax side.

The Finance Minister In The Trenches

Nigeria is heavily dependent on the oil sector as a major revenue source. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has oversight of the country’s petroleum trade and keeps records on domestic crude oil sales and reconciliation statement with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The NNPC is widely considered as one of the most powerful corporation’s in Nigeria, so when in 2013, one of Nigeria’s most respected central bank governors, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, told a senate committee that $49 billion was missing from the state coffers, all hell broke loose.
“I had for many years expressed concerns that reserves are not going up but it never really hit me. I always thought there was some explanation of maybe the production sharing contracts were not favorable to Nigeria, the oil company was taking the bulk of the revenue, maybe we had some sort of financing arrangement with the oil companies and the revenues were going towards paying those debts, maybe NNPC had borrowed from banks and the revenue was going towards paying off the banks,” says Sanusi, who now goes by the name of Emir Muhammadu Sanusi after being crowned as the Emir of Kano in 2014.
The shocking revelation will forever haunt Sanusi as his worst day in business. It all began in a quarterly meeting at the CBN.
“We have within the central bank what’s called the Government Consultative Committee and it is made up of all the departmental directors, the deputy governors and the governor. We met once in a quarter to review the economy. At several of these meetings I had complained that I was not at all satisfied that we had understood what was going on with revenues because the numbers were not adding up to me,” says Sanusi.
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“So the initial report I got was that we had been seeing a huge and increasing gap between the value of crude oil shipped from Nigeria and the amount of money paid in by NNPC. So I said ‘why don’t you go back to just January last year ‘til now and bring out from your records how much crude we exported and how much revenue we got in’. He came back with numbers that showed a difference of $49 billion and I said ‘I don’t believe this’. So I got his deputy governor and other directors to look at the numbers again and they came back with the same number.”
After reconciliation, $29 billion was explained through a production sharing agreement where the money was paid to the state through the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) account instead of the CBN account. The remaining $20 billion however could not be accounted for. Sanusi had to make the difficult decision either to keep quiet and finish the remainder of his term as governor of the CBN or speak up. He decided to speak up.
“I thought the best thing to do was to write to the president and draw his attention to this and the reason is because, as governor of the central bank, I have the fiduciary responsibility to my customer to let them know if something is going wrong. So I wrote to the president and said to him ‘Mr President, I am concerned that reserves are not going up’ and explained to him what was happening. This was in August 2013; the president received the letter and did nothing. I saw him several times in meetings after that but he said nothing,” says Sanusi.
After being ignored for months, Sanusi’s letter mysteriously ended up in the hands of the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who wrote an open letter to the Goodluck Jonathan administration. The media frenzy that ensued resulted in Sanusi being summoned to the president’s office.
“I got a call and he said I should see him at 3PM and when I got there the place had been swept, there was no one apart from the security services, it was as if everybody had been asked to go. He says to me he is calling because he is surprised a letter I wrote to him got to Obasanjo and I said to him I was surprised as well. And he said he is calling me because he thinks I know who gave Obasanjo the letter. I said the letter was in different places, and Obasanjo had been a former president and lived in this villa for eight years and therefore he is more likely to have sources inside this villa than inside the CBN,” says Sanusi.
“He said he is convinced that the letter left the CBN to Obasanjo and I have 24 hours to find out who leaked the letter or sack somebody, and if I didn’t sack them then that was proof that I leaked the letter and that I should resign.”
The exchange was unexpected for Sanusi. The focus was not on the missing $20 billion but rather on who leaked the allegations to the former president. Sanusi redirected the focus of the conversation back to the missing funds and put the blame on the NNPC and the former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke. From that moment, he knew he had signed his professional death warrant.
“I knew that taking on the NNPC was taking on the most powerful minister in Jonathan’s government and nobody who had touched Diezani had survived; so it was not a question of what would happen, I just didn’t care at that time. I did not want to go down in history as having seen this and kept quiet. Once I mentioned the minister he got very angry, his countenance changed and he said ‘you know, whether you like it or not, you are going to leave that office, I cannot continue to work with you, either you or I will leave government’.”
The following months were full of threats and allegations of corruption against Sanusi, which led to his eventual suspension by Jonathan on the grounds of financial recklessness and misconduct. His term as the governor of the CBN had come to an end just a couple of months before the end of his official tenure. The authorities seized his passports and made life uncomfortable, according to Sanusi.
“I always said that I didn’t see the role of being Governor of the Central Bank as an end; it was never really an ambition for me. It was a job and, if I wasn’t sacked, my term would end anyway. The only reason I stayed is because I believed if you are called to serve your country, don’t just walk away. You have a five-year term, complete the term and go. So it wasn’t an issue, the real issue for me was to get to the bottom of what had gone wrong,” says Sanusi.
These days, Sanusi still spends his time in service to his country but this time as Emir Sanusi, and the religious leader of the Kano Emirate. The role is a hereditary role and has been in existence for thousands of years, with his particular dynasty ruling Kano for over 200 years. The role has tremendous influence in terms of advice to political authorities and collaboration in the delivery of public services. As he looks back on the events that transpired just a few years ago, his resolve is as strong as ever when asked if he would have done anything differently.
“I am a prince and you need to understand the psychology of princes. The best place for a prince to be is a place where he can be a hero; at that point we had reached a point where I could not lose. If the president brought me down, I would be brought down while defending $20 billion of the Nigerian people’s money and if I brought the president down I am a hero for bringing the president down while defending $20 billion of the Nigerian people’s money, I could not lose. The only way the president was going to win was to sack his petroleum minister and investigate the money.”

The Pain Of The Banker Who Investigated The  Missing  $20 Billion

On the August 5, 10,500 athletes from 206 countries will march into the Maracanã stadium in Rio for the opening ceremony of the biggest sporting event on the planet, the Olympics. Among the hopefuls looking to take home one of the 306 gold medals is Nigerian freestyle wrestler, Odunayo Adekuoroye. The 22-year–old woman managed to clinch one of the available slots at this year’s competition by winning bronze in the 53kg weight category at the World Championships in Las Vegas, United States. Weeks away from the big day and there is uncertainty in the air about Nigeria’s Olympic prospects.
“We always have issues with funding especially in the first quarter of the year. The minister of sports has been in touch with the federation and they have already released funds and the athletes are in very good spirits. We are hoping issues of tickets, and athletes not being able to arrive at the event this time, will not arise,” says Daniel Igali, President of the Nigeria Wrestling Federation.
Igali is also the chairman of the technical commission of the Nigeria Olympic Committee and a former Olympic gold medalist for Canada. He is the coach of Adekuoroye and is optimistic about her prospects in Rio.
“Last year, in all able-bodied sports, my wrestler was the only athlete in the Nigerian team that won a bronze medal in the qualifiers so we have very high hopes that she will medal at the Olympics this year and, if she does, that will be the first time any Nigerian will be winning a medal at the Olympics in wrestling.”
Nigeria failed to win a medal at the 2012 London Olympics. Igali is determined to change this record in future competitions, however, he needs to overcome several hurdles first.
“Our outreach programs at the youth level have been non-existent and so it has been a big challenge trying to get some of the younger athletes to take over from the older ones at the national level. We need to have wrestling programs in most schools, from primary and secondary levels and also at the university and tertiary level. The national university competition in Nigeria still does not have wrestling,” says Igali.
To further exacerbate the situation, athletes in the sports do not get the chance to sufficiently compete during the year to prepare them for big events like the Olympics.
“At the younger level, an athlete in a competent sport needs to compete at least every month and at the elite level at least once every three months. Last year we only had our elite athletes competing twice in the whole year,” says Igali.
Adekuoroye, who won a gold medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, shares his sentiments.
“Most of my opponents have competed about four times this year and I have just competed once and I don’t know what to do, but that is Nigeria for you.”
Adekuoroye fell into the sport by accident.
“I was into athletics before but I was cheated out of my position so I started crying. My coach at the time saw me and asked me if I wanted to travel with the team and take part in wrestling instead. So, just because I wanted to travel, I followed him and when I got there I won gold and that is how I started wrestling,” she says.
Adekuoroye switched from a 400-meter athlete to a wrestler. She could not compete in London 2012 because her weight was just below the required 53kg. This year, she is determined to prove she has what it takes to win a medal.
“I am not scared about Rio, I believe I am not representing Nigeria alone but also Christians all over the world and so I believe with prayer and training my God will not let me down. I have good coaches as well and I don’t want to let them down,” says Adekuoroye.
Wrestling has given a new lease of life to the young athlete.
“All I have is wrestling. I was not born with a silver spoon but because of wrestling, I have something to eat and even give others. I am the provider for my family and as a result I will continue to put everything into the sport to make sure I continue to succeed.”
It is estimated that it takes about 10 years of proper grooming for an athlete to achieve Olympic gold. One does not only need talent and hard work, but also the right support system in place, from physiotherapy to a chiropractor as well as experienced coaches. In the absence of these essential ingredients, the Nigerian patriotic zeal and dogged determination has brought Adekuoroye this far. Could she have enough to change the fortunes of the nation in Rio 2016. Nigeria hopes so.

Grappling For Gold

William Mokgopo started out riding his uncle’s bike on the rugged streets of Diepsloot, a township 40 kilometers north of Johannesburg.
“My uncle had this old road bike, it was so big, extra-large, and I was so little I would get into the frame and try peddle on the side.”
At 13 years old, he built his first bike inside a shipping container. Three years later, he was hurtling down the dirt roads of Africa in serious mountain bike (MTB) competitions. In 2020, he hopes to ride for gold in Tokyo.
They call him the Skinny Hulk. The name fits like a glove. Mokgopo, the South African mountain biker, is tall, thin and pumped up with gutsy determination. At the age of 24, he is already the 12th-ranked mountain biker in South Africa; part of a new generation of cyclists from the streets to race for gold at the UCI MTB World Championships, the African Continental MTB Championships, and the UCI MTB World Cup.
“MTB is growing massively. In the future, I think it could be a major sport. It’s coming to schools now and the schools series this year had about 10,000 riders. Even if you look at the black communities, it’s growing. Yesterday we went for an 11-hour ride around Johannesburg and there were about 30 black riders.”
“I think it’s a bit premature to think I will qualify for this year’s Olympics. But the qualifiers are due in May. Even if I make third or second, I still might make it.”
On this early summer morning, Mokgopo, in riding gear, greets with a warm smile outside Number 3080, on a bumpy street in Diepsloot. It’s not easy for cars in this street, but an ideal challenge for training on a bike.
Mokgopo lives in a RDP (Reconstruction and Development Program) house that the government started building for its citizens after the 1994 elections.
“Everyone here used to live in extension one; in shacks. When the houses were allocated, they chose a block of shacks and said those living in shacks from here to here are getting RDP houses. We were given a number and told this was our house. We signed a form, and that was it. I was still at primary school at that time. Before it was the six of us living in the house.”
“The first year that I started getting paid, I extended these other two houses and one in the back here. It was actually just to have a bit of space. It was difficult living together; trying to bath here and trying to do a whole lot of stuff,” he says.
Everything changed when a 13-year-old Mokgopo came across a shipping container.
“It was just up the road from my house. You will see the fencing on the main road. It started with a project called Earn-A-Bike. You would go and choose a bike, then they would strip it down and then you would teach yourself how to build it. Then, when you graduated, that bike that you built would be your own bike,” he says.
Here, Mokgopo came across Simon Nash, Founder of the Diepsloot Mountain Bike Academy, and began to race.
“People didn’t take it seriously. When you are riding a bike in Diepsloot, it looks like you are just doing it for leisure. You are a grown-up still riding a bike, for my neighbors it was stupid. Soccer is the main sport here, so when you are on a bike people are like what are you doing?”
For Mokgopo it was uphill all the way. His school friends tied strings across the road to bring down his bike. Outside a corner store, a group of men would sit on crates and laugh at him as he rode by.
“It would be very tough getting out the township in your riding gear. I would have to take shorts and the minute I got out of town then take them off and go ride my bike. There were guys who would stop me and ask me stupid questions, like what is this hat? What are these pads on your pants; are they for a woman? But now those people who were laughing at me are actually my friends.”
“The other day, I was sitting on the floor at the corner shop and one of the guys came up and said why is The Celebrity, cause that what they call me now, sitting here? One guy said I think even if William has a million rand he will still come and sit here. I always want to show that I still want to be at the level they are.”
One reason for Mokgopo’s smile on this day is a new R70,000 ($4,750) bike, tucked away in his room. Along with competing professionally on the Kargo Pro MTB Team, the first UCI-registered MTB Team in South Africa, Mokgopo is a sports sciences student at the University of Pretoria.
“The tricky thing about MTB is getting the points and staying in front. When you do cross country you need to look at the course. When you are racing it’s a completely different course. Someone might push you off course or the rock you thought you would be jumping from might have moved. It’s always the thought of what’s coming next,” says Mokgopo.
“From our side, William is a one-of–a-kind athlete, he is so complete on and off the bike and many pro athletes can learn from him. The Olympics is very much a reality for William in 2020 and beyond. He is showing improvement every season and also deals with setbacks very well which is a very important aspect for a pro athlete striving to be the best. Making small adjustments to his training regime over the coming seasons will see William gain that consistency that is needed week in, week out for Olympic level racing,” says Shaun Peschl, Team Manager of Kargo MTB.
Cycling isn’t cheap. Mokgopo says it can cost R500,000 (around $34,000) a year to race as a professional for travel alone. His team is fortunate to get their bikes and supplements for free. The latest equipment can make all the difference.
“When I started racing, I had a poor conditioned bike. I remember the academy got me a carbon bike, I could finish second. It just shows from that little change in equipment it can set you moving into that winning stage. It can put you on the podium. The expenses can push people away from the sport. But it depends on the person you are,” he says.
Racing is all about focus, he says.
“I will sit with my eyes open and listen to music. People think I am listening, but I am seeing the course and riding it all the time. It’s getting the feel of the race before even getting to the starting line. I see everything how I want it to be in the race. This is where I have to jump. This is where I need to speed up,” says Mokgopo.
He once spent three weeks in bed with a broken shoulder, after he clipped a motorbike while training on a dirt track.
“I couldn’t even control my fingers. I rode one handed to home in Diepsloot. Overnight it got worse and we had to go to the hospital the next day. But when I went back everything had completely changed. I started coming second and third and ended up winning a race and that was it. I went to bigger races and was introduced to cross country. When you get your first victory that is when the love gets that bit bigger,” he says.
The proof is in the scars. Mokgopo has dozens of them.
“When you fall, the blood looks super cool&#8230; My mom was skeptical; with all the bruises and stitches I have when I come home. She didn’t want me to do it. She doesn’t say much, but you can see she’s very proud. My dad always says he’s very proud of me,” says Mokgopo.
Mokgopo’s dream of a spot in Rio were dashed when he injured his knee at the Cape Epic in March. It took two months to get back on the bike again.
“On Day 4 of the Epic, my knee was in so much pain, but I stuck it out to just finish, positioning was no longer important.”
The injury forced Mokgopo to build a new dream; his plan is now to be the South African champion in 2017, go to the Commonwealth Games in 2018 and to be an Olympic athlete in Tokyo in 2020.
Bumps, bruises, a bike built in a shipping container and friends who used to laugh at him. Mokgopo comes from humble beginnings and hopes to ride his luck all the way to Japan in 2020.

The rugged Road To Tokyo?

It was a day he will never forget. July 25, 1991. The day sailor David Hudson heard that South Africa would be allowed back in the Olympics. At the time, he was on the Mediterranean Sea just off Barcelona, Spain, the very place where the next Olympics were to take place. He was there to watch the world’s best sailors compete, 12 months before the Olympics, to give them a taste of sailing in Mediterranean waters.
“It was something else. When our readmission looked likely, I intended coaching. My intention was to help as a volunteer,” he says.
“It was after Nelson Mandela was released. It was at this stage when the drafting of the Constitution was under way. There was an eminent persons group, three African heavyweights, they came out in April 1991 and did a trip around South Africa to see where things were. “
Hudson was jibing sails and skimming across the water with the best of them from the age of 20. If it wasn’t for apartheid he was a sure bet for the Olympics.
“My Olympic chance would have been 1971, when I competed in the World Championships in the pre-Olympic season. We were very strong then, but that was when I was in my twenties.”
The veteran Hudson, now 70-years-old, says it can take as long as seven years to build an Olympic team, South Africa had 17 weeks in 1991. Hudson, who was by now forging a career as an assistant general manager at Old Mutual, thought he was long past his sell-by date. How wrong he was.
In that December, Hudson got a phone call from David Kitchen, his Olympic sailing partner, who changed everything.
“I knew him, but not very well. He said he was stuck, his helmsman had dropped out, and he’d bought a secondhand boat for the trials. He wanted to sail with me. I said I am 45, I’m not interested,” says Hudson.
“He phoned and phoned and badgered me. I said I wasn’t interested. I was only interested in coaching, I’m not sailing. I’m in the middle of my business career I’m not doing it.”
The tipping point was a doorstep meeting at a swimming gala in Saldanha Bay, in the Western Cape.
“I get a tap on my shoulder and here is this guy. He has flown all the way from Johannesburg. He said I have come to take you to train for the Olympics, I said you’re bloody insane.”
Hudson gave in. He phoned his business and asked for special leave. The sailors met up in Durban four days ahead of the trials which were set for neutral waters off Umhlanga, North of Durban. With five races to go, Hudson says their chances were slim. They needed to place first in the last five races to qualify. They did it.
“Compared to the professional way things are done today, and compared to the fairly professional way things were done in those days, it was a real scramble,” says Hudson.
“My standard gym routine was three days a week. That was just for local sailing. From the moment we got in, we went onto a hectic program through sports science. It was properly guided, dietary and gym. In six months my body changed remarkably.”
Caught up in the excitement, Hudson took a flight to Italy to check out his competition.
“On very short notice I booked a flight, packed a backpack and flew to Italy. I went straight to the event with no accommodation, with nothing organized and I went around talking to all the sailors. I was this unknown guy from Africa, they talked to me as if I was just a tourist. I got the most amazing information, about their boats, how they set up their gear. I hitched up with a journalist who had a spare bed in an apartment. I got myself accredited through a sailing magazine as a journalist. I got on the media boat, was able to watch all of the racing close up. Four days later, I upped on the plane, flew back and was back at work. It was the kind of thing a kid would do, but here I was 45,” says Hudson.
The Olympics drew nearer and the sailors needed to get their boat in the water. The pair joined the European sailing circuit for practice.
“We did it on a shoestring. We camped out in the truck. Kitchen stayed inside. On good weather I slept on the roof and in bad under the truck.”
In Holland it was too expensive to camp, so the two South Africans drove into the countryside, down a country lane and found a quiet place to squat, illegally.
“It was beautiful weather. At about 1AM we heard voices and flashlights and there I was naked in my sleeping bag on the roof of this truck and this beautiful blonde Dutch policewoman is shining her light saying ‘what are you doing here?’ I looked at this and said ‘am I dreaming?’”
“She said ‘where are you from?’. We said Africa. I said ‘why can’t you camp here, are there tigers?’ They burst out laughing and said disappear don’t be here tomorrow.”
En route to the Olympics they also picked up a 400 Deutsche Mark fine for going over the speed limit with a trailer on the autobahn.
“Kitchen was forever losing stuff. That could have been a real issue. So I decided to budget myself and say if David only misplaced three things in a day, it was a good day. It sounds silly. It could have become a big issue. Here it is, you are on a boat and its pissing with rain, its bloody cold and about to get dark and you can’t find the tools because he hasn’t put them back where they belong.”
Hudson arrived in Barcelona a month before the games.
“They gave us an arbitrary anthem and a neutral flag. There was a huge welcome. There was a greater applause for us going into the stadium than even for the host nation.”
For the first time, the Olympic village was built around the marina.
“It was a rundown grotty area, we had been there in 1971. That part of the coast was shambolic. But they turned this pretty worthless area into the great big marina with a great sailing center. In the evenings, the other sportsmen would come ambling down to the marina when they were doing their relaxation.”
The racing went better than Hudson expected.
“On paper we shouldn’t have been able to beat anybody. We had 17 weeks against seven years of training. We ended up struggling with lighter wind and finished 19th out of 23 countries.”
They were the only team on the water without a coach, but at least they were there. Hudson had lived an Olympian dream he thought he’d left behind. On the day he arrived back in South Africa, it was straight back to work.

How A Dream  Died And  Lived Again

Strong powerful legs slam the tartan floor, each stride gaining an increasingly large distance from the rest of the field. Arms pumping gently, mouth slightly ajar, his body moves in a methodical rhythm. Suddenly, oozing a combination of grace and power, he quickens the pace, his eyes locked on the stopwatch ahead. A crescendo applause fills the stadium as he glides towards the finish line. “They’ve done it again,” the commentator roars, “Kenya takes the gold medal.” Heartfelt celebrations ensue as he fights against the post-race exhaustion. One man has an entire nation on its feet. Glory!
Every four years at the Olympic Games, an interpretation of this scene seems to occur in the track events. Since the incomparable Kipchoge Keino won two medals in Mexico in 1968, Kenyan athletes have dominated middle to long distance running at the Olympic Games.
While the Games are never without drama, the months preceding are usually fairly calm for athletes. This year was an exception. The months before the 2016 Rio Olympics proved to be arguably the most contentious period for Kenyan athletes in the nation’s Olympic history. From delayed legislation, to surprise Twitter announcements, Kenyan athletes and supporters rode a rollercoaster of emotions before the East African nation was finally given the green light to participate in the Games this August.
The strife first emerged at the beginning of the year when the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) announced that Kenya would be placed on a watch list. Stemming from a Wada report that was bolstered by more claims of bribery, extortion and Kenya’s legislation towards doping (or lack thereof), the country was in hot water. In February, Wada Director General David Howman stated
“Wada is most disturbed by these reports regarding extortion and bribery at the national level of sport,” said Wada Director General, David Howman, after claims that Athletics Kenya had asked two banned Kenyan athletes for a bribe in exchange for a shorter sentence.
Following these claims, the country missed two Wada deadlines to establish anti-doping legislation (February and April). The athletics powerhouse was officially at risk of being banned from the 2016 Games. In April, however, President Uhuru Kenyatta assured the nation that an Anti-Doping Bill would be passed by Parliament and that he would sign it into law before the May 2 deadline.
“There would be no excuse to deny [the Kenyan] team from participation in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in August,” said Kenyatta.
On April 22, Kenyatta signed the bill, which criminalized doping in Kenya. Kenyans were reassured that they would watch their heroes strive for Olympic glory once again.
Back in Kenya, athletes continued to train for the Games. In late April, the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) Athletics Championships took place on the outskirts of Nairobi. Winners would represent the KDF team, which would participate in the National Athletics Championships in July. This is where the Olympic fate of Kenya’s best athletes is decided.
Kenyan athletes also continued to excel internationally in the build-up to August. Scooping top spots in both the women’s and men’s races at the London Marathon, where Eliud Kipchoge beat the course record, Kenya’s athletes showed the world that they were able to remain focused despite the controversy.
More controversy was to come though. In May, Athletics Kenya announced the marathon squad to participate in the Olympics. The current holder of the marathon world record, Dennis Kimetto, wasn’t selected, sparking furious debate as sports enthusiasts put the doping controversy aside. Less than 72 hours later however, WADA would divert attention with the following statement: “The WADA CRC has made the unanimous recommendation that Kenya be declared non-compliant with immediate effect.” It claimed there were “inconsistencies” with the Kenyan legislation.
The news was a huge blow to the country, which believed it was on track for Rio.
“How is this happening? …I’m shocked,” said Keino, the former Olympic hero and Chairman of the National Olympics Committee of Kenya (Nock).
The rest of Kenya was just as flabbergasted. Many took to social media to express their disbelief and disappointment, including World Champion javelin thrower Julius Yego, who is an avid social media user (Yego learned how to throw the javelin by watching YouTube videos).
“It’s worrying and painful to remember the sacrifice, perseverance, dedication put towards achieving the success and ultimate goal and suddenly get [it taken away from] you! It’s heartbreaking and saddening!!” (sic),” said a perturbed Yego, who had been regularly updating his supporters through his Facebook page.
Yego’s words personalized a debate that had raged around the world for months. A blanket ban for Kenya would be disastrous for the country, but it would be devastating for the Kenyan athletes who were genuinely training hard to fulfil their Olympic ambitions come August 2016. Perhaps for the first time, Kenya started to envision an Olympics without its proud athletes participating.
Shocked into action, a couple of days later, a Kenyan delegation, with Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Amina Mohamed, and Cabinet Secretary for Sports, Hassan Wario, flew to Montreal, Canada, to meet Wada officials. Here Kenya agreed to a roadmap allowing the country to become fully compliant with Wada’s code after making amendments to the Anti-Doping Act. In addition to this, reports flooded in that while WADA had deemed Kenya non-compliant, the power to ban the country from Rio ultimately lay with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which said that Kenya was eligible to participate in Rio, unless the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said otherwise. A collective sigh of relief could be heard in Kenya.
For now it appears that Kenya is in the clear, and while it is very evident that the issue of doping is a complex challenge that Kenya must urgently deal with, one can only wonder how prepared Kenyan athletes are. They need to put the drama behind them and represent their country at the Olympics with as much conviction as ever.

Heroes Almost Heartbroken

When Wayde van Niekerk returned from winning a 400-meter gold medal at the World Championships in Beijing last year, only his mother Odessa was at the airport to welcome him home.
Despite this monumental achievement, he was little known outside of athletics circles. Twelve months on, he is a star on a meteoric rise and will head to the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August among South Africa’s leading medal hopefuls.
Van Niekerk already holds a special piece of history as the only person to run under 10 seconds in the 100 meters, sub-20 in the 200 meters and below 44 in the 400 meters, but will focus on just one of those in Rio.
“I’m only looking to compete in the 400-meters, in the future I will look at other events. I want to get myself a solid medal and then take it from there,” Van Niekerk tells FORBES AFRICA.
Despite his impressive times, in reality his chances of medals in the other events would be very slim and he would stand next to no chance of gold competing against the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt, in the two shorter distances.
<div id="attachment_4972" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-4972" class="size-medium wp-image-4972" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/GettyImages-485252836-300x219.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="219" />BEIJING, CHINA &#8211; AUGUST 26: Wayde Van Niekerk of South Africa crosses the finish line to win gold in the Men&#8217;s 400 metres final during day five of the 15th IAAF World Athletics Championships Beijing 2015 at Beijing National Stadium on August 26, 2015 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)</div>
Van Niekerk has already cleared a number of hurdles in his life, including a premature birth that left him fighting for his life, and he believes he can improve those times in the future.
“I believe I still have a lot more in the tank, I’ve just started racing against the best in the world,” he says. “But records are not my goals, I want to win for South Africa.”
“I am excited to show the world that South Africa belongs to be there among the world’s greatest sporting countries.”
Sitting with Van Niekerk, he cuts a determined and focused figure, confident but also humble.
He is, in a way, living the life his mother, now remarried after the deterioration of her relationship with his father, never had due to apartheid. Like her son, she was a talented sprinter competing under the banner of the non-racial South African Council on Sport (SACOS).
Whether she could have made an impact on the international stage is conjecture, but she was denied the chance to try. Van Niekerk says that knowledge drives him to succeed, hinting too that his career has healed a rift between his parents.
“What gives me an extra push is my family, the people who have played a role in getting me to where I am today. Running in my family’s name and representing them is very important to me. More recently having the whole country behind me has been great too.”
“My mom and my dad are super supportive. I appreciate the opportunity we have as a family and I’m grateful that it has brought a sense of togetherness to my family.”
“It’s got my family back together and supporting me, we are not thinking about the past but only the future. This is our moment and I am trying to make each and every one of them proud.”
Tears well in his eyes as he relays the story of his birth, at just 900 grams, and the immediate aftermath that was torture for Odessa.
“Every day she woke up, she wasn’t sure I would be alive. It makes me emotional that my mother had to go through that.”
It’s the reason Van Niekerk donated around $30,000 of his prizemoney from winning the Sportsman of the Year at the 2015 South African Sports Awards last November to the Groote Schuur Hospital’s neonatal unit, where he spent time in an incubator in 1992.
“My contribution is me trying to help others,” he says.
Life may have started out tough for Van Niekerk, but things turned when he attended famed sports school Grey College in Bloemfontein.
“Grey College created the environment for me to succeed. I had to push myself but the school aspires to sporting excellence and I am grateful for the opportunity to have gone there.”
He emerged as a potential 400-meter champion in 2013 when he broke the South African record, and then took silver at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow a year later. It was not until his gold in Beijing that the world really started to take notice though.
“I’m very confident and comfortable in the position I’m in. I’m excited to see what lies ahead of me,” he says. “I cherish every single medal I have. I’ve got this opportunity to go out there and live out my dreams and achieve as much as I can by doing what I love.”
“When it comes to the Olympics it’s another opportunity for me to tick off another title in my career.”
Van Niekerk, who has the fourth fastest time ever in the 400-meters of 43.48, will compete in Rio against LaShawn Merritt of the United States and Kirani James of Grenada.
James has run the quickest time this year of 44.08, but Van Niekerk is just 0.03 off that time in 2016.
“I doubt any of the top three guys are going to Rio not to win the gold medal, that is certainly my vision and goal for the Olympics,” he says. “I am not thinking about any other medal at the moment, but obviously I need to go there healthy and put in my best performance.”
His chances were boosted by the opportunity to train with Bolt and fellow sprinter, Yohan Blake, in Jamaica in June.
“I feel I can learn a lot from them and can improve myself as an athlete,” he says.
Van Niekerk has also welcomed the decision of the International Olympic Committee to re-test drug samples from previous Olympics to root out those who have used banned substances.
“It’s good to know they are going out there and digging out the guys who have been cheating. It’s not a nice feeling knowing you are giving your all out there and somebody else is cheating.”
The Cape Town-born speedster admits he remembers very little of his races, but whatever happens in Rio, he can have no regrets.
“The race itself is a blank experience, I only remember the end. All stresses disappear right there. It’s about me giving my everything and leaving it all there on the track.”

Fast, Furious and lucky to be alive

For 17 days, Rio de Janeiro will be the home to more than 10,000 athletes competing in the first Olympic Games on South American soil. It will also be the home of scores of African athletes, across 42 sports, hoping to claim one of 4,924 medals up for grabs.
Rio marks the second Olympics where social media will play a key role; London 2012 brought in 10 million tweets a day and was named the first social media Olympics. The International Olympic Committee expects of 3.6 billion viewers, of which 3 billion will be watching from their smartphones.
On this new technology will be one of the oldest sports. Golf will be returning after a 112-year absence. Another comeback sport will be rugby Sevens; the 15-man version of the game was last featured in Paris 1924, when the United States won gold.
With the beautiful sport comes the ugly – the finances. Brazil is suffering its worst recession in decades with inflation of 11%, reports Reuters. Protestors criticize the $9.6 billion price tag – which may rise even higher – two years after forking out $15 billion on the 2014 Fifa World Cup.
Olympic hosts have a long track record of breaking their budgets by an average of 176%, says a report by University of Oxford in 2012. This means Brazil could be looking at bill of $17 billion. The last Olympics in London cost an estimated $12.7 billion but the world’s most expensive Games was the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, which cost $51 billion.
Among the Africans competing for gold, at the cost of billions, is 22-year-old Nigerian woman freestyle wrestler Odunayo Adekuoroye.  You’ll find her story on page 20.
FORBES AFRICA also looks at the grace and controversy of Kenya’s runners.
Get the inside story of our FORBES AFRICA columnist, Kirsty Coventry, who is in Rio. We’ve also got the fastest man in 400 meters and an old man of the sea who saw his Olympic dreams die and come back to life. We look to the future African hopeful, William Mokgopo, who plans on biking his way to the top at Tokyo 2020.

Tag: July 2016

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