Officer's respect, reassurances clinch peaceful arrest of former president
Sandile Ndlovu
As South Africans watched the midnight drama unfold on TV this week, little did they know that a soft-spoken 52-year-old policewoman was already inside the Nkandla compound, telling Zuma the game was up. She revealed that she was not hand-picked for the assignment but volunteered, asking her bosses"to please give me the opportunity to go and talk to baba".
When the moment of truth came, Zulu, who spoke to Zuma in her mother tongue, isiZulu, said:"I told him that he knew why I was there and that I was the one who had been sent to fetch him." Zulu was taken aback by Zuma agreeing to her request, albeit with conditions such as ensuring he was put in a safe facility and that there would be consideration for his ill-health. Zuma is 79 years old.
After an hour-long conversation with her, Zuma left to pack and Zulu picked up her phone and started making arrangements. "It was heart-breaking to watch and it was worse because I was taking a former president. Prison is traumatising enough for a person who has not even been arrested; how much more when you have to go there and leave an elderly man and then have to take his fingerprints to make sure that you arrested him. It was not a nice feeling for me, especially as a Zulu woman," said Zulu.
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