My Second Initiation

As National Director of Public Prosecutions from 2005 until 2007, Advocate Vusi Pikoli pursued criminal charges against the current President of South Africa Jacob Zuma and the convicted former National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi. It was his dogged determination to bring the country's top cop to account that ultimately saw Pikoli removed from office and a public inquiry into his suspension held. My Second Initiation traces Pikoli's journey from his first graduation to manhood in the hills of the Eastern Cape, to his second in the corridors of power in government. Pikoli has a deeply ingrained loyalty to the Constitution of the country and a keenly developed sense of justice, cultivated on the politically aware streets and rugby fields of New Brighton township. He recounts how he fled with his ANC unit into exile and spent fourteen years away from his home and his family, suffering the loss of a child and a man he considered a brother. He believes that the sacrifice was necessary in the fight for freedom and liberation. In this searingly honest account, Pikoli reveals how he grappled with the dilemma of prosecuting friends and comrades, how he navigated through repeated attempts at political interference and how he confronted his own persecutors in a poignant face-to-face encounter. He provides an insider's perspective on cases that have dominated discussion over the past decade from the Arms Deal and the Scorpions to the Brett Kebble murder, Travelgate, the Special Browse Mole Report and the hoax e-mail saga. Pikoli interrogates the state of the country's criminal justice system, reflects on what has become of his beloved ANC and considers whether the cost of his sacrifice was worth fighting for.