Are we now supposed to stay awake at night watching out for coup plotting bogeymen?

This week’s “startling” comments by Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni about the "risk" of a coup raise a number of questions.

Should the citizenry sleep better at night going forward knowing that President Cyril Ramaphosa and his trusted minister are taking care of business? Or, should we be worried, afraid that the atrociously performing government is at risk of being suddenly replaced?

I must admit, after that media briefing by Ntshavheni, which was supposed to be about “the national security strategy in light of the recent budget debate concerning the State Security Agency”, I had a good night’s sleep. I even had some lovely dreams, including one where a new government had suddenly come to power and begun rescuing our beautiful but beleaguered Mzansi from all the crime, corruption, unemployment, poverty and inequality. 

A coup d'état is not always a bad thing. It depends on the new leadership’s intentions or programmes for the country and its citizens. So, don’t let the minister scare you. The people of Libya saw an improvement in their lived reality after Muammar Gaddafi’s coup, which is why the 1969 takeover is also known as a revolution – the 1 September Revolution.

And there are many different kinds of coups, including a version that is increasingly becoming more common in recent times – self-coups.

Unlike the standard violent and illegal ones launched by small groups for their own narrow benefit, self-coups are where a legally installed leader decides to stay in power illegally, renders the national legislature powerless and assumes dictatorial powers. In some cases self-coups or autocoups happen when, as seen at the beginning of the Trump 2.0 administration with Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the leader assumes and uses powers not given to him or her by the constitution and other laws. It is that kind of coup that Mzansi must be afraid of.

I wasn’t startled or shook by Ntshavheni’s briefing. But why did she decide to burden poor fellow South Africans with such weighty matters?

We already sleep with one eye open because of crime. And we have that real-life bogeyman in the White House threatening to destroy our economy every week. Are we now supposed to keep our weary eyes peeled looking out for coup plotters too?