On Monday afternoon, we were all stunned (and pleased) to see that a breakthrough had been made in the murder case of Oupa John Sefoka aka DJ Sumbody. Sefoka was fatally shot in November 2022 in Woodmead while returning home after a performance. Katiso ‘KT’ Molefe, believed to be the mastermind behind the attack, was arrested at his Sandton home. Molefe and three others – Michael Pule Tau, Tlego Floyd Mabusela and Musa Kekana – appeared in the Alexandra Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, and their case was postponed to next week for bail application.
This does show that the wheels of justice are finally turning in the case, but I’m more interested in who was at Molefe’s home when he was arrested… none other than the Sushi King himself, Kenny Kunene.
Kunene’s political journey
Kunene is a controversial figure who made a name for himself by his extravagant lifestyle and hosting lavish parties where he and his guests would eat sushi off of half-naked women’s bodies, hence the moniker.
Kunene, alongside his best friend and business partner, now Sports, Arts and Culture Minister Gayton McKenzie, also owned the popular nightclub ZAR, which closed in 2012. Back in its heyday, ZAR was the place to be and be seen at. It was popular with both celebrities and politicians alike, and maybe that’s where Kunene got his first taste of politics.
I kid. Like most people of a certain age in this country (he’s turning 55 this year), Kunene was involved in anti-apartheid activism in the 1980s. According to a rather glowing intro when he joined the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), He was arrested and detained when he was 14 in the Free State.
Kunene was among the first people to publicly criticise then African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma in 2013 by writing a scathing open letter, in which he accused Zuma of “stripping the ANC of the last shred of its integrity.”
He was also one of the first people to join the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and even served as a member of its first-ever Central Command Team, the party’s highest decision-making body. He would go on to resign a few weeks later due to leadership squabbles within the fledgling party. His feud with EFF president Julius Malema would go on for years, persisting as late as even two weeks ago when Kunene said that he wouldn’t pay Malema a cent after calling him a cockroach in 2021, a move that was deemed hate speech by the Johannesburg High Court in 2023.
In November 2013, Kunene and McKenzie created the Patriotic Alliance (PA), the party that would see both of them secure prominent positions years later: Kunene as MMC of Transport in Joburg and McKenzie rising even higher in the ranks as Sports Minister. Then it’s no surprise that I, like so many others, was surprised that Kunene would be linked to such shady figures. I thought he had given his sushi-loving ways behind, but seemingly not.
So what was he doing there?
According to Kunene, he just happened to be “at the wrong place, at the wrong time for the right reasons.” He says that before being caught at Molefe’s house on Monday, he had no relationship with him or his associates. He says he was merely the middleman between Molefe and a journalist at Kunene’s online publication African News Global: “I spoke to my contacts who know this guy. He agreed to the interview to tell his side of the story. I was then told to bring the journalist because they felt comfortable with my presence,” said Kunene.
The PA said that Kunene had done nothing wrong by visiting Molefe. “So, since when is visiting a suspect a crime and since when does it make you complicit in whatever crime the person has committed?” The party has since asked Kunene to step aside as MMC pending an investigation into the matter.
Kunene and the bad men
Last week, I told you about South Africa’s bad habit of making the worst among us famous simply because they lead lavish lifestyles that many aspire to. Could this be one of those instances? People and even his own party are rejecting that Kunene did anything wrong, but the optics aren’t great. Why was a politician visiting a man out on bail for another murder during a time in South Africa where politics and the criminal underground have been caught in bed together?
Kunene might not have done anything wrong, but it’s just not a good look. Also, his excuse doesn’t make sense. It’s one thing as a journalist for your editor to get you in touch with a source, but another thing altogether for them to sit in on your interviews.
As the investigation into Molefe and even into Kunene’s ties to him continues, we need to start asking ourselves why our politicians, who are meant to uphold the rule of law, keep being caught in these compromising positions with dangerous men. Maybe the politicians are the dangerous men.
Tshego is a writer and law student from Pretoria. A keen follower of social media trends, his interests include high fantasy media, politics, science, talk radio, reading and listening to music.
He is also probably one of the only people left who still play Pokemon Go.
