Zuma is HIV Negative; Too Bad for South Africa

South African president Jacob Zuma has revealed that he is HIV Negative. He said this when launching a government program for testing and counseling outside a Johannesburg hospital. Zuma has always insisted that he has tested for HIV but has never revealed his status.

Is this good for the fight against HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa? I would say NO. It is good news for Mr. Jacob Zuma and his harem but bad news for South Africa. We would wish somebody who has married five wives, has a baby with a mistress and has once raped a HIV positive girl, God should have rewarded him with the virus so that he serves as a warning against risky sexual behavior to the nation.

Zuma’s sexcapades read like a Hollywood movie or a piece out of Jackie Collins. He admitted having had unprotected sex with a family friend who was HIV Positive, a matter the girl claimed was rape but the courts ruled it was consensual.  This was at a time when he was Vice President and facing corruption charges that saw him axed by then president Thabo Mbeki. He claimed he knew the girl was HIV Positive but went ahead to have unprotected sex and took a cold shower as an antidote. 

To many young South Africans, now he has confirmed that he is HIV Negative, the Zuma Shower Antidote, though not having been subjected to any scientific proof, is an effective protection against the virus. This is because a person as powerful as the president is seen as a role model and the youth look up to him. The new mantra could easily be, ‘if Zuma made it, then me too.’ This will hamper the fight against the pandemic.

Since he became president, Zuma has married a fifth wife, is in the process of marrying a sixth and has fathered a child with a mistress who happens to be daughter of a close friend. Though Zuma is involved in all these sexcapades, the virus seems to elude him. The South African youth will try to replicate his success with women and elude the virus too. Am sure the attitude against polygamy and promiscuity has since changed since Jacob Zuma became president, courtesy of his influence.

If Jacob Zuma would have tested HIV Positive because of his public sexcapades, it would have been bad for him but good for the fight against HIV/AIDS in South Africa, Africa and the world over. Because his sexcapades make world headlines, it would have been a world warning against reckless sexual behavior.