Gangster State

go through us one by one to see if anyone was somehow linked to the
murder. But there simply was no such probe.’
Two other former members of the so-called northern faction confirmed
that they also had not been questioned. Despite the obvious tensions
between Ngombane and senior political figures, the police for some
reason did not even bother to include politics as a possible motive for
the murder. Of the three former Magashule allies I spoke to, two told
me they were certain the order to kill Ngombane was politically
motivated. The third said it was ‘highly probable’ that this was the
case.
‘The local SAPS had already been captured by the political machinery
at that time. I believe any attempt to investigate the real cause of the
murder was killed from within the police’s ranks, and there was a
deliberate plan to make Noby’s wife the scapegoat,’ alleged one of my
sources.
It would take a few months before the public would learn how
underwhelming the police’s so-called evidence had in fact been.
Nokwanda was arrested along with Vuyokazi and Tantaswa mere
days after Bongani and Siphumle. All five were charged with
Ngombane’s murder. Amid the arrests, the police fed the media with
sensational information that purported to show why Nokwanda wanted
her husband dead. Another City Press report, published the day before
she was due to appear in court, claimed that her husband’s life had
been insured for R 20 million and that Nokwanda was due to receive
this massive payout in August.^17 Again, the paper’s information clearly
came from someone in the SAPS.
Nokwanda said this was hogwash. ‘Noby wanted to take out life
insurance because he was scared and paranoid,’ she told me. ‘He got a