Commission is a gamble

At the height of Jacob Zuma's rule, when President Cyril Ramaphosa was still merely the deputy president of the country, the single biggest criticism he faced was that he never said anything about the huge calamity that was state capture that was unfolding around him.

- Sydney Majoko

Upright ministers who dared to stand up to the regime of the day were being fired or sidelined and only those individuals who met the approval of state-capture architects, the now-fugitive Gupta brothers, were appointed or promoted. Yet Ramaphosa remained quiet.

There was some agreement that had he sounded the alarm bells he, too, would have been sidelined and therefore the most strategic thing he could do was keep mum and wait his turn.

He eventually found his voice in the run-up to the 2017 ANC national elective conference at which he was to be elected ANC president for the first time.

What was the very first thing he called for at the height of state capture when he finally found his voice?

"We need to act now to prevent any further damage. We need an independent judicial commission of inquiry...our law enforcement must act with speed and purpose to investigate all these allegations..."