Zulu radio personality and political firebrand Ngizwe Mchunu stepped before a charged crowd on Saturday and delivered two messages that pulled sharply in opposite directions. Standing at a packed Durban gathering, the former Ukhozi FM presenter insisted undocumented migrants must exit South Africa without delay. His tone was firm. His audience leaned forward.
Mchunu declared that every foreign national residing in the country without proper documentation should pack belongings and return home immediately, citing what he described as unbearable pressure on jobs, housing, and government services stretched beyond capacity. He stopped short of naming specific nationalities, but left no ambiguity about the urgency he believes the situation demands. The message drew loud approval from supporters clustered near the front.
Yet within the same breath, Mchunu issued a stern caution to those same followers. Vigilante action, mob violence, and attacks on migrant communities are unacceptable, he told the gathering — ordering South Africans to allow law enforcement and relevant authorities to manage removal processes through legal channels rather than their own fists. “Do not take matters into your own hands,” he stated directly. “That path destroys us too.” Neither the South African Police Service nor Home Affairs had publicly addressed his remarks by Sunday evening.
The comments arrive against a backdrop of simmering tension across Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, and the Western Cape, where anti-immigrant sentiment has intensified over recent months. Mchunu first grabbed national headlines in July 2021 when he helped mobilise crowds during the unrest following former President Jacob Zuma’s imprisonment, a period that left over 350 people dead across KwaZulu-Natal alone. His influence over working-class township communities remains substantial.
A woman seated near the stage clutched a hand-painted placard reading “Our Streets, Our Children” — her eyes never leaving the speaker as he finished. Beside her, a teenage boy filmed everything on a cracked phone screen, uploading clips before Mchunu had even walked off the platform.
What happens when rhetoric this combustible meets a fractured, desperate population with nothing to lose remains the question haunting every thoughtful observer watching Saturday’s footage spread across social media. Will the warning against violence hold — or does it simply give permission to the fury while asking it to wait a little longer.
