Musa “Shukela” Thwala, the former deputy mayor of Newcastle in KZN, is in a bitter battle with his brother-in-law, Andile Nkosi, who wants to remove him from the Team Sugar party.
Thwala, who founded the party after leaving the EFF in 2021, revealed that he had to remind Nkosi that the party’s constitution says that the president is president for life.
“He plotted with IFP councillors to remove me as the deputy mayor of Newcastle and as a member of the municipality’s executive committee,” said Thwala. “Now he has written a letter to remove me as the founder and president of Team Sugar South Africa.
“He forgets that he is just the party’s deputy president, and I am the president for life of this organisation that I started by myself. I cannot be removed or challenged in any way,” he said.
Thwala said that his brother-in-law is also trying to get him removed as a ward councillor in Madadeni township.
In return, Thwala is trying to expel his brother-in-law as the party’s deputy president and as a Team Sugar councillor in Amajuba district, but he has not yet been successful.
Nkosi took the matter to the Pietermaritzburg High Court and requested an urgent hearing.
Thwala said: “Now I don’t regret making a clause in our party constitution that if the president happens to be disabled or dies, the deputy should be elected through the elective congress, not automatically ascend to power. If I didn’t do that, they would have killed me to take over the reins.”
Nkosi was said to be plotting against Thwala with the party’s secretary-general, Nondumiso Masondo, who was fired by Thwala.
Thwala claimed that Masondo had failed to produce a secretary’s report for over two years after they had founded the party with Newcastle sugar factory workers.
Masondo is also challenging his dismissal in court.
Nkosi and Masondo could not be reached for comment as their phones rang unanswered, and they did not respond to written messages.
Pictured above: Team Sugar South Africa president Shukela Musa Thwala, with his brother-in-law Andile Nkosi behind him.
Source: Celani Sikhakhane
