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Jacob Zuma is apparently refusing to meet with King Mswati's royal envoy dispatched to Nkandla to negotiate the return of Nomcebo.
Eswatini’s King Mswati III and Jacob Zuma’s daughter Nomcebo at the 2024 Umhlanga Reed Dance ceremony. Picture: Emmanuel Croset/ AFP
King Mswati III’s 16th wife and former South African president Jacob Zuma’s daughter, Nomcebo Zuma, is said to have abandoned her royal marriage to the Eswatini monarch.
The king’s 22-year-old junior wife, known as Inkhosikati LaZuma in the tiny kingdom, is said to have left the palace, allegedly complaining that she could no longer bear being in a polygamous marriage where she “goes for months without seeing her husband”.
The ruler of the last remaining absolute monarchy in Africa has already been married 15 times and fathered 36 children.
As Zuma’s daughter, Nomcebo is, of course, no stranger to polygamy — with her 82-year-old Zulu father boasting six wives and at least 20 children.
Sources close to the palace claim that Nomcebo nevertheless struggled with the high emotional toll of King Mswati’s polygamous lifestyle.
King Mswati’s ‘Wife No 12’: Nomcebo Zuma
Nomcebo became King Mswati’s “Wife No 12” after appearing at the annual uMhlanga Reed Dance ceremony as the new inkhosikati (“queen”) of the 56-year-old king in September 2024.
Soon thereafter, his young bride accompanied the ruler on a lavish R200-million state trip overseas.
The Citizen previously reported that the lobola for Nomcebo amounted to a staggering R2 million and 100 head of cattle.
ALSO READ: Precious time: Nomcebo Zuma flaunts R3.9m watch on first state trip with King Mswati
King Mswati dispatches royal envoy to Nkandla
In an attempt to deal with this rare challenge to Eswatini’s royal marital customs, a delegation of royal negotiators has been dispatched to Zuma’s Nxamalala homestead in Nkandla, northern KwaZulu-Natal.
In line with Swazi tradition, when a wife disappears – a practice known as kwemuka – the husband sends a delegation to her family to plead for her return.
Why is Zuma ‘refusing to meet’ with delegation?
The Eswatini-based publication Swaziland News, however, cited insiders’ claims that the royal delegation has been camped out in Nkandla for days while the former president has allegedly refused to even greet them.
According to the sources, the uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) Party leader told the envoy that he had never supported the marriage from the start, but only went along with it because his daughter was insistent.
Reporting on the lobola negotiations last year, Sunday World stated that Zuma was under the impression that King Mswati wanted his son, who is in his 30s, to marry his young daughter.
During the negotiations, however, it came to light that the king himself was eyeing Nomcebo as the latest addition to his own cohort of wives.
ALSO READ: The luxury life of King Mswati III: Eswatini monarch arrives in SA in ‘flying palace’
Eswatini ties with Zulu monarchy and Jacob Zuma
There are strong traditional ties between Eswatini and South Africa’s Zulu monarchy, with the current Zulu King Misuzulu ka Zwelithini being Mswati III’s nephew.
Zuma and Mswati are also already relatives through marriage.
- So far, neither the Zuma family nor Eswatini’s royal palace has issued an official statement.
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