There are bad years, and then there is Julius Mkhwanazi’s year, an extraordinary procession of commissions, allegations, arrests and court appearances in which the only dependable source of comfort appears to have been a quarter chicken and extra-hot sauce.
By Themba Khumalo
If you have spent 2026 wondering what exactly you did to deserve this year, spare a thought for Julius Doctor Mkhwanazi, whose own run of misfortune has reached the point where even bad luck might be feeling slightly embarrassed.
Whatever minor inconvenience currently plagues your life—a flat tyre, a bounced debit order, or an overcooked mutton bunny—pales in comparison to the sheer, relentless cascade of systemic misfortune engulfing the suspended Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department deputy chief.
There are bad years, and then there are years so spectacularly disastrous that you begin to wonder whether the universe has developed a personal grudge against you. Mkhwanazi appears to be having one of those years in which the calendar itself might reasonably be called a hostile witness.
And the Madlanga Commission provided some rather vivid evidence of just how bad things had become.
Consider the sheer physical toll first. We have all sat through uncomfortable job interviews, awkward performance reviews, or tax audits. Still, few of us have ever sweated through a shirt so violently that the proceedings required an emergency hydrological intervention.
Sitting before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, Mkhwanazi drank enough water to single-handedly relieve the Gauteng drought, all while leaking stress from every pore as cross-examiners politely dismantled his professional confidence.
That level of perspiration is not mere nervous tension; it is a full-body evacuation of self-assurance.
One could only watch in quiet awe as the man fought to keep his composure while every probing question from the bench triggered another sudden drop in the municipal reservoir levels.
And for what? A modest, public-spirited attempt to cut through bureaucratic red tape.
Is it now a crime for a dedicated public servant to bypass the State Security Agency’s tedious vetting process? If you cannot casually authorise fifty unvetted promotions within ninety days, why even bother climbing the municipal ladder?
Efficiency requires bold action, not administrative delays.
As for the blue lights fitted to the civilian fleet of alleged cartel-heavy Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala—surely that was just high-level public-private partnership in action. Why let tedious municipal by-laws impede a local entrepreneur’s commute when a forged Memorandum of Understanding can clear traffic so elegantly?
Then there are the grand operational misunderstandings. Take, for instance, the private raid on a Killarney apartment in 2023. Former partners may paint it as an off-duty heist to expropriate millions of rands in precious stones, but surely, it was merely an informal confiscation for safekeeping.
The same applies to those energetic excursions beyond municipal borders: an out-of-jurisdiction trip to a Meyerton factory to inspect copper, or a brief detour involving a Putfontein truck hijacking and driver kidnapping.
This is not rogue behaviour; it is simply proactive, borderless policing taken to its logical, highly entrepreneurial conclusion.
Yet the universe remains aggressively ungrateful, rewarding such indefatigable enterprise with standard-issue leg irons.
The Independent Police Investigative Directorate has effectively turned arresting Mkhwanazi into a recurring seasonal festival. The logistics alone deserve a dedicated calendar.
First came the initial detention in April 2026, executed almost before the sweat had dried on his forehead following his maiden appearance before the Madlanga Commission.
Then came the second arrest for the Killarney precious stones affair. Just as the defence team began finding its footing, investigators slapped him with a third arrest—this time a dark upgrade to murder and torture charges alongside four co-accused over the 2022 death of Emmanuel Mbense in Brakpan, whose body was retrieved from the Spaarwater Dam.
Lesser mortals would have surrendered to fate at that point, but Mkhwanazi’s docket collection kept growing. Charge sheet number four arrived courtesy of an alleged high-level bureaucratic conspiracy, in which Mkhwanazi was charged alongside former City Manager Imogen Mashazi, former HR executive Linda Gxasheka, and legal head Advocate Kemi Behari for allegedly colluding to quash his own internal disciplinary proceedings.
Yet, through this unimaginable ordeal, Mkhwanazi demonstrated the kind of unyielding composure that separates true leaders from mere survivors: he maintained his appetite.
When officers moved in to execute his arrest early in August, Mkhwanazi did not panic, nor did he plead. Instead, he stepped out toward the police van clutching a freshly packed, grease-stained brown Nando’s takeaway bag.
While most citizens facing another trip to the holding cells would lose their willingness to chew, Julius recognised a fundamental truth of South African justice: court dates are long, holding cells do not cater, and flame-grilled chickens are non-negotiable.
It was a display of resilience so profound that it inspired a national meme—Juju mphako levels—and prompted Nando’s itself to issue a legal disclaimer about “delivering everywhere, allegedly.”
It takes a special kind of stoicism to look at a team of arresting officers and decide that your side order of spicy rice is coming along for the ride.
And just in case he felt forgotten while sitting in custody, IPID officers dutifully served a fifth arrest warrant directly to his prison quarters to wrap up the blue lights saga.
Most ordinary citizens struggle to get a single police vehicle to respond when their house is burgled; Mkhwanazi cannot get an entire investigative Directorate to leave him alone for five minutes.
Currently shuttling between the magistrate’s courts of Brakpan and Germiston while state prosecutors adamantly oppose bail on the tedious grounds of witness intimidation, Julius Mkhwanazi stands as a tragic, heavily papered, peri-peri-scented monument to administrative overreach.
So the next time your boss sends a mildly passive-aggressive email or your morning commute is delayed by five minutes, pause. Look up at the sky, pour out a generous, respectful splash of bottled water for Ekurhuleni’s busiest inmate, and remember: it could always be worse.
You could be facing docket number five without a side of extra-hot sauce.