MBHAZIMA Shilowa - remember him? - emerged from the shadows at the weekend to give us his two-cents' worth on former director-general the Reverend Frank Chikane's riveting book, Eight Days in September: The Removal of Thabo Mbeki.

The last time we heard from him was when he took his once closest ally and now biggest political foe, Mosiuoa "Terror" Lekota, to court to contest the presidency of a fast disappearing political party called the Congress of the People.

For sustained periods Shilowa traversed the length and breadth of the country trying to convince everyone who would listen that he was the bona fide leader of the party.

Then he went to ground, only to resurface to pen a column-book review in the Sunday Independent.

In the piece's footnote the now-you-see-him-now-you-don't Shilowa identifies himself only as former premier of Gauteng. No mention is made of Cope.

This glaring omission probably serves to confirm that there is nothing left of Cope to write home about anymore.

Home is best

MOSIOUA Lekota had, since the run-up to the Bruising Battle of Polokwane in December 2007, never had anything favourable to say about the Machine Gun Man.

He once even went to the extent of referring to him as akabadlanga (isiZulu for "stupid").

In fact, the two men have never agreed on anything since then. That's why Guluva was surprised to see the Cope man sharing the stage with the Machine Gun Man at the recent Human Rights Day celebrations in Kliptown, Soweto.

Not only that, the Cope man used the platform given to him to chastise the people of Sharpeville for thinking they owned rights to Human Rights Day celebrations.

By so doing he was agreeing with the Machine Gun Man that the prez of the revolutionary party was right to hijack the day's main celebrations from Sharpeville - its traditional base for many years - to Kliptown, which is historically linked to the Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.

From the look of things, Lekota is signalling to the Machine Gun Man that he wants to abandon the sinking ship that is Cope - in other words he, too, cannot Cope anymore - and is ready to return home to Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.

Well, as they say, there are no permanent enemies in politics.

Peacetime freedom fighter

GULUVA has another confession to make: he is a soapie fanatic - and unashamedly so.

That is why he has been keenly following the story of businessman Sibusiso Dhlomo (Menzi Ngubane) in SABC1's Generations and his encounter as a freedom fighter during the difficult days of the liberation struggle.

He also tells us of how his close friend, Mzwanele Mawende, was brutally murdered deep in the bush of Angola for being a security police informer.

Dhlomo's story, which Guluva believes is based on reality, suggests that the incident took place 20 years ago. This would take us back to 1992.

But this was two years after then Mzansi president FW de Klerk had unbanned all outlawed political organisations - including the Ain't Seen Nothing Yet and its armed wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe.

Exiles had returned home, negotiations for a new democratic dispensation were in full swing, apartheid spies and police informers had effectively become redundant and the political situation had completely changed.

So what were Sibusiso Dhlomo and his friend still doing in the bush of Angola?

E-mail: Guluva at thatha.guluva@gmail.com