| QUICK FACTS | |
| Birth Name: | Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma |
| Occupation: | Politician, Anti-apartheid activist |
| Age | 12 April 1942 (age 82 years) |
| Place of Birth | Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal |
| Nationality: | South African |
| Gender: | Male |
| Wife(s): | Gertrude Sizakele Khumalo (m. 1973) Kate Mantsho (m. 1976; died 2000) Nkosazana Dlamini (m. 1982; div. 1998) Nompumelelo Ntuli (m. 2008) Thobeka Mabhija (m. 2010) Gloria Bongekile Ngema (m. 2012) |
| Children | 20 (estimated) |
| Political Part | African National Congress (ANC) |
Jacob Zuma is a South Africa politician and anti-apartheid activist who served as president of South Africa from 2009 until he resigned under pressure in 2018.
Who is Jacob Zuma?
Jacob Zuma, full name Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (born 12 April 1942 in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) who served as the fourth president of South Africa from 2009 to 2018.
Zuma received no formal schooling.
Zuma’s early life and family
Jacob Zuma first born of five children of his father Nobhekisisa Zuma and his second wife, Geinamazwi. His mother had three sons with his father, Jacob being the eldest. His father constructed the middle name Gedleyihlekisa from a Zulu phrase, which translated into English reads, “I cannot keep quiet when someone pretends to love me with a deceitful smile.” His father’s first wife had four sons and three daughters.
His father, a policeman, died when Zuma was a young boy. Following his father’s death, he and his mother left for his mother’s parental home in kwaMaphumulo, Natal. At the age of seven or eight, Zuma began herding his grandfather’s cattle while his contemporaries went to school. Zuma and his fellow herders would engage in traditional stick fighting, at which he allegedly excelled. His mother had wished to take him back to Nkandla but there was no school there so he was left tending the cattle and goats in kwaMaphumulo. When Jacob was still a youth, his mother for the port city of Durban where she found employment as a domestic worker, leaving her son behind.
Back in kwaMaphumulo, Zuma taught himself to read by looking at the books of other children who attended school. He even arranged a night school for himself and his friends – eventually approaching a lady who had gone up to Standard Four (Grade six) to provide them with tuition. They paid her 25 cents to do this.
In his teens, Zuma would visit his mother who was working in Cato Manor (uMkhumbane) but was not allowed in the home where she worked. Instead, he would walk around the city in search of work. At around this age, Zuma was politically influenced by stories of the Bambatha Rebellion which were retold by men who had lived through the period of the rebellion. However, perhaps the greatest influence came from his elder step-brother Muntukabongwa Zuma. His brother had been a soldier in World War II and later became a trade union activist and a member of the African National Congress (ANC). While visiting Cato Manor and Greyville, in Durban, Zuma saw ANC volunteers doing political work and consequently, he began attending the organisation’s meetings too.
In 1959, he joined the ANC and the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) and the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU) and began attending ANC and trade union meetings at Lakhani Chambers in central Durban. He spent three years, from 1960 to 1963, attending political education classes there.
Post-presidency legal troubles
Soon after stepping down, Zuma was confronted with more legal challenges. In March 2018 the NPA announced that it was reinstating the charges against Zuma pertaining to his relationship with Shaik and a French arms company; he faced 16 charges relating to racketeering, corruption, money laundering, and fraud. Zuma pled not guilty at the trial, which began in May 2021. In a separate matter, a public investigation about allegations of corruption during Zuma’s presidency, stemming from Madonsela’s 2016 “State of Capture” report, was underway. Hearings began in August 2018. Zuma appeared before the investigatory commission to provide some testimony in July 2019 but then refused to participate any further. He accused the head of the commission, Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, of being biased against him and demanded his recusal, which was denied. In June 2021 the Constitutional Court found Zuma to be in contempt of court for his refusal to participate in the commission hearings and sentenced him to 15 months in jail. Zuma began serving his sentence in July, but in August he was taken to a hospital for surgery pertaining to an undisclosed medical condition. The next month he was granted medical parole and allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence from home.