JACOB ZUMA NOT ABOVE THE LAW: MUST NOT BLUFF HIS WAY OUT OF PRISON.

ICHEOKU says blames Judge Sisi Khampepe for not making her order with immediate effect and marching off the former president straight to  prison, without issuing the five days grace period. It was a contempt of court proceeding which required no other further evidentiary proof outside what the presiding judge had determined were violations of the court which cannot be pardoned and must be punished. Such a commitment to prison order is usually with immediate effect, so why the judge granted the former president the period of reprieve before beginning his 15 months prison term is not clear. 

Could it be out of respect for his position as a former president of South Africa or for his leadership role during the apartheid struggle for which the former president did a 10 years prison term or because of his very advanced old age, in order to allow him time to prepare, both mentally and emotionally, get his house in order and also get his medicines and make other overall necessary arrangement before beginning his prison sojourn. Why did the judge permit this aberration of failing to commit former President Jacob Zuma straight to prison, aware of his theatrics and that such a recalcitrant defiant of the court might once again be up to his tricks and will most likely not turn himself in at the expiration of the five days. 

Now that the worst fear has come through and he failed or refused to turn himself in as initially ordered, the judge must now develop additional courage in saying to Jacob Zuma that his conduct will not be tolerated by adding more months to his already 15 months prison sentence and have Zuma marched off in handcuffs straight to prison. A matter made even more disheartening by the former president comparing the judge to apartheid era and you wonder what racist undertone is in the judgment. Jacob Zuma is a perennial flagrant disrespecter of the court process, a punishable contempt of court and he was punished, so? It is also somewhat defamatory of the person of the judge to compare her, a fellow black person, to the white oppressive government of then apartheid South Africa. She simply upheld the law and courageously said enough of his rascality and all she gets now is being accused of apartheid. 

ICHEOKU says the former president must be hauled off to prison immediately as he is a bad example and his obstinate and impetuous disregard of the judicial process in South Africa should no longer be tolerated or accommodated. The whole world is watching very closely to see if South Africa has fallen to such a lowly rock bottom that the rule of law is no longer respected and whether Jacob Zuma has now grown above the law. The five days have lapsed, the judge must now add teeth to her order by ordering the police to arrest Jacob Zuma immediately and deliver him to the correctional center to begin his prison term. The court concluded that Jacob Zuma is guilty of the crime of contempt of court and will be punished. The court has punished him by sentencing him to 15 months imprisonment, so the only thing now left is for the court have Zuma committed to prison. 

Not to do so and to allow his latest shenanigan of an "appeal" to stall his confinement will send the same otherwise avoidable message that the rule of law and administration of justice in South Africa is no longer supreme. He refused to cooperate with the commission of inquiry and said that he would rather go to prison than cooperate with a judicial process. Now that he has been sent to prison, the court must enforce its order and help him realize his preferred goal. He must not be allowed to bullshit his way out of going to prison for contempt of court for which he has been sentenced, because to do so will encourage lawlessness and chaos in South Africa judicial process as other people who might be 'similarly situated in the future will point at the Jacob Zumas example as a precedent whenever faced with court's processes. 

ICHEOKU says strongly believes that if Jacob Zuma is allowed to ignore and disregard a valid  order of a competent court of South Africa, it will shake the foundation of democracy in South Africa since rule of law is the bedrock which anchors every democracy. Imagine the lawlessness which his recalcitrance is already threatening to unleash on South Africa, with some of his thugs insisting that "Zuma is not going to jail" and that they will make South Africa ungovernable if he is sent to prison. What manner of a leader is he anyway if he is encouraging such lawlessness and wishing it envelopes the same country which he once served as its president for eight years? His sentence for contempt of court does not require extensive "trial" as he ignorantly claimed that he was "lambasted with a punitive sentence without trial"; contempt of court proceeding is a summarily weapon in the hands of the court to punish misbehaviors before the court. 

ICHEOKU says hereby rejects his notion that South Africa is sliding back to apartheid rule because he was punished for aggregated disrespectful misconducts and unbecoming contemptible attitude shown to the judicial process. If anyone is eroding any rule of law in South Africa it is Jacob Zuma who has refused to turn himself over to the police as ordered by the court to begin his prison sentence. So yes, many honest persons are accusing him of being against the rule of law as his resistance to a judge order and willful disregard to the judicial process is capable of upsetting the political equilibrium in South Africa by causing social unrest. His action is capable of causing a complete breakdown of law and order in South Africa should his supporters takeover the streets, forcing the government to react. So, yes, Jacob Zuma is against the rule of law. 

If Jacob Zuma claims that he is not afraid of going to jail because he is a veteran, he should  turn himself in to begin his 15 months prison sentence. He needs to have gone to jail since yesterday because the five days grace period granted him by the judge have ran its course. His "long detention" is not without trial because trial was summarily done by the judge as required by the law. His claim too that "sending him to jail at the height of a pandemic and at his age amounts to a death sentence" is laughable because he was oblivious of the same COVID-19 infection when he was dancing with thousands of his supporters in his country home without social distancing and not wearing a mask, in defiance of a complete total lockdown order due to rapid reinfection going on in South Africa. It was also his choice too not to get vaccinated. 

Therefore he should not be allowed to wriggle himself out of prison. He made his choice to disrespect the courts severally; he was convicted of contempt of court and he is now duty bound to serve his sentence. It is not his to decide whether or not he will "constitute himself a prisoner" because a court with authority to do so have already so determined. He should be behind bars in the interest of justice and respect for the rule of law. It is rather unfortunate that supposedly appellate papers he belatedly submitted to the court was accepted and that he will now be heard on July 12th. ICHEOKU condemns it as aiding and abetting his bad behavior and avoiding his penalty for contemptible behavior. Hopefully it will be a mere formality and he will end up being marched to prison. 

How can he assert that if it was up to him that he would once again go to jail for his beliefs as early as today, whether he come alive or not, but that he have never operated as an individual and that he is guided by the views of comrades and family. Continuing, he said that when he saw the police he wondered how they were going to get through all his supporters to get to him. What a mockery of the law enforcement in South Africa by  former president and once chief law enforcement officer of South Africa who is now tacitly encouraging a breakdown of law and order as no sensible person in a leadership position should do. Are these "comrades and family" now superior to the justice system in South Africa that what they think is more weighty than the court pronouncement. 

But as we all probably already know, filing an appeal is not an automatic stay of execution; it must be first expressly pleaded, heard and granted before it has the force of delaying an existing sentence. Therefore Jacob Zuma should be arrested immediately to begin serving his 15 months prison sentence for contempt of court and he can always be released if his appeal succeeds. Failure to do so and to allow him bluff his way out of prison will show that South Africa has joined the list of other African failed States such as Nigeria and is now a place where the rule of law does not apply and does not matter, not any more; and where the proverbial African "big" men and women are above the law. Nobody is above the law and former President Jacob Zuma is not above the law. #ArrestJacobumaNow.