My Second Initiation

As national director of public prosecutions from 2005 to 2007, Advocate Vusi Pikoli pursued criminal charges against the current president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, and the convicted former national police commissioner, Jackie Selebi. It was his dogged determination to bring the country’s top cop to account that ultimately saw Pikoli removed from office and the subject of a public inquiry into his suspension.

Pikoli has a deeply ingrained loyalty to the Constitution of the country and a keenly developed sense of justice, cultivated on the politically aware streets and rugby fields of New Brighton township. He recounts how he fled with his ANC unit into exile and spent 10 years away from his home and his family, suffering the loss of a child and of a man he considered a brother.