AS the May 18 local government elections draw nearer, Guluva is seeing more and more people turning themselves into willing mobile advertising boards

The "products" they are selling to the long-suffering electorate on their colourful T-shirts include Ain't Seen Nothing Yet's Machine Gun Man, De Lille-Zille's Godzille and Mmusi Maimane, IFP's Mangosuthu Buthelelezi and the now-you-see-him-now-you-don't president of beleaguered Congress of the People, Mosiuoa Lekota.

Guluva always feels sorry for these merchants as, contrary to the advertising industry's practices, there's no financial incentive for them though they give these "products" a tremendous amount of mileage wherever they go - shopping malls, soccer stadiums, music concerts, cinemas, taxi ranks and numerous other public places.

Now, what does Judi Nwokedi, Ain't Seen Nothing Yet's councillor candidate for Johannesburg's Ward 117 - the area that includes the Guptas' Saxonwold compound - do in all of this?

She appears in a Sunday newspaper wearing a T-shirt bearing the image of - wait for it - slain Black Consciousness Movement leader Stephen Bantu Biko, an astute political leader that Ain't Seen Nothing Yet never had.

With Ain't Seen Nothing Yet and the Black Consciousness Movement two completely different political animals ideologically speaking, even today, could Nwokedi tell us whose side she is really on ahead of the May 18 elections?

Money and Africa

THE recent extended holiday breaks were good for business in Giyani as thousands of financially loaded holidaymakers visiting their families in this sleepy one-horse Limpopo town and its 100 or so surrounding villages splashed out their boodle as if the end of the world was nigh.

But it was not good news for the banks, which were put under severe strain to meet the unprecedented demand for cash.

Some of the banks literally ran out of banknotes as the monied guys and dolls who make their living in Polokwane, Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town swarmed the ATMs and the traumatised tellers inside. A local customer had to wait for more than an hour to cash a R20,000 cheque as the bank simply did not have enough money in its vaults.

This reminded Guluva of the story of a South African photographer assigned by his newspaper to cover the Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament in Burkina Faso in 1998. On arrival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso's capital, the lensman went to a bank to change a $5000 traveller's cheque into the local currency.

The branch's manager, Guluva was told, had never seen such a "fat" cheque before. He immediately ordered that the bank's doors be closed so he could afford this one particular customer the special treatment he so richly deserved.

Riddle in Dewani case

GULUVA had a bit of a chuckle the other day when he heard that the chief magistrate presiding over murder-accused Shrien Dewani's extradition hearing in the Belmarsh magistrate's court in London was Howard Riddle.

With its many twists and turns, the case against the 31-year-old British millionaire, who is accused of orchestrating the murder of his wife Anni during their honeymoon in Cape Town last year, has become one monumental riddle.

It's just a pity that Riddle will not be part of solving the riddle when Dewani stands trial in Cape Town - that is if Riddle grants the extradition order - as it will be outside his jurisdiction.

E-mail thatha.guluva@gmail.com.