President Jacob Zuma’s controversial wife Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma has been banned from his Nkandla home following sensational claims of a plot to poison the president.
After months of speculation about the president’s relationship with Ntuli-Zuma, sources said the reason she had been cast out related to suspicion by the president of her involvement in an alleged plan to poison him. She now lives in Durban North with her three children.
The president’s office has refused to comment on the claim, which has been confirmed to the Sunday Times by three sources.
They claim that although the president fell ill and was hospitalised in June last year, it was only during a trip to the US two months later that a still-ailing Zuma was told he had been poisoned.
However, he did not trust the Americans and went to Russia for treatment. Russian doctors confirmed the diagnosis.
A source said the president was very angry when he found out about the alleged poison plot, but told close relatives to keep it within the family. They were told that Ntuli-Zuma had done “something terrible that could put her in jail for a long time”, a family insider said.
Ntuli-Zuma, who had accompanied the president on his August trip to the US, was said to have been ordered to remain in the Nkandla compound. She spent Christmas and New Year’s Eve alone in her house in the compound, and moved out in January.
Speculation about the couple’s strained relationship has been circulating for months, and was fuelled further last week by her absence from Zuma’s state of the nation address. His other wives, Sizakele Khumalo-Zuma, Bongi Ngema-Zuma and Thobeka Madiba-Zuma, attended.
Other pointers to the couple’s problems were Ntuli-Zuma’s absence from the annual Christmas party hosted by the president in December, and a claim that she did not get her Christmas allowance.
She has also been removed from the international travel roster of the Presidency’s spousal office and will no longer be accompanying the president on his trips. She remains entitled to benefits from the spousal office unless a divorce takes place.
The Sunday Times sent detailed questions to the Presidency about Ntuli-Zuma and the circumstances around Zuma’s illness. Spokesman Mac Maharaj ignored them, replying only that: “The status of Mrs Nompumelelo Zuma had not changed. She is the spouse of the president.”
A direct link between Ntuli-Zuma and a poison plot could not be conclusively established. It is understood that the president believed that she had been motivated by herunhappiness at being sidelined since allegations of reports that she may have had an extramarital affair surfaced a few years ago.
Zuma, as the former chief of ANC intelligence in exile, is said to be extremely paranoid and to believe in conspiracies. When he was diagnosed by the Russians, Zuma believed that only someone within his immediate family circle could have had access to his food. Suspicion fell on Ntuli-Zuma.
Asked about the falling out between Zuma and his second wife, the president’s brother Michael said he did not know anything about a poison plot. But he confirmed that Ntuli-Zuma was no longer living at Nkandla.
“I can’t remember when she left, but it’s not long ago,” he said. He said it was difficult for him to say whether Zuma and Ntuli-Zuma would reconcile.
“It’s between the two of them. I think you can get it better from them and not me. I don’t have any details about that matter. I am also searching for answers but I can’t find any,” said Michael.