In Eight Days in September, a book that narrates an insider’s version of events during former president Thabo Mbeki’s recall in September 2008, Frank Chikane paints a frightening picture of how an intra-ANC factional power struggle, which also plays itself out within our intelligence services, poses a national security threat.

“The reality is that these elements could corrupt our intelligence services to an extent that foreign entities or their agents or national proxies could take over [the] government,” he wrote, referring to self-serving ANC factions...