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The poison was so effective that while I was eating I asked him: Why are you killing me? The pain was excruciating. - People’s United Democratic Movement (Pudemo) leader, Mlungisi Makhanya.

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Sizwe sama Yende

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The life of Eswatini pro-democracy activist, Mlungisi Makhanya, was saved by a lawyer friend whose number he accidentally dialled while writhing in pain from eating poisoned food.

Makhanya spoke out for the first time about his life-threatening ordeal to The People's Eye Podcast since being discharged from hospital. He was poisoned in September by a man he met in 2002, which had he “grown to trust” as he was also from the Kingdom of Eswatini and a pro-democracy activist.

Makhanya is president of the People’s United Democratic Movement (Pudemo) and resides in Pretoria – as an exile – because of enmity between Pudemo and absolute monarch, King Mswati III.

He denied reports that he stayed with the unnamed man and said that he had asked for a place to sleep to be closer to public transport as he was en route to Mpumalanga province.

WATCH: Part 1 - Why should King Mswati III lose power and my poisoning scare

“We had a discussion and I wanted to give him a motorbike to use to deliver food to TVET college students in Nelspruit. He didn’t know how to ride a motorbike. A Ugandan national taught him within a day,” Makhanya said.

Makhanya said the man went back to where he stayed and was excited about the gift and the opportunity.

On that fateful, Makhanya said, the man dished food for him when he arrived home late and sat with him on the table. The man and Makhanya’s son had eaten earlier. Makhanya’s son had gone to his cottage when everything happened.

“The poison was so effective that while I was eating I asked him: Why are you killing me? The pain was excruciating,” he explained. Makhanya said that he soon felt dizzy and could not lift himself up to walk.

The man pretended to be helping Makhanya but he locked him in his ensuite bathroom, and left with the keys. Makhanya said he thought the man was fetching car keys and when he realised he was not returning, he thought it was an incursion and the man was forced under duress to lock him.

“What saved me,” Makhanya said, “was that as he took me to the bathroom, the phone somehow dialled the last number that had called me. It was a missed call from the lawyer friend who did not know where I stayed and I did not know where he stayed.”

WATCH: Part 2: Why King Mswati III should lose power and my poisoning scare

Makhanya said that the phone fell from his hand as he was weak but the lawyer had answered and heard him groaning in pain and saying: “I’m being killed.”

The lawyer, said Makhanya, then phoned his comrades he knew and also the police and told them he was being held hostage. “They called the man and he told them I was fine. It was due to the lawyer’s insistence that people [and law enforcers] came and had to jump the fence and break the door,” he said.

The lawyer kept phoning Makhanya’s phones non-stop and that might have prompted the man to leave in realisation that help could be on its way.

“All along, my son had been in his cottage and was oblivious to what was happening. He was surprised to find many people having come to the house.”

Makhanya said that he was taken to a private hospital but with the intervention of ANC government officials he was transferred to Steve Biko Tertiary Hospital, which they recommended as the best for his condition.

“This boy had been bought using one of the king’s (Mswati III) sons. I heard that he was bought clothes and cellphones before my poisoning,” he said.

During the interview Makhanya said that Pudemo was still committed to release eSwatini from Mswati III’s rule. Pudemo was formed in 1983 after the banning of political parties in the country in 1973

In July 2021, the country was engulfed in violence as pro-democracy protests spread throughout the country. This was the strongest ever insurrection against the monarch and his regime. For it, the activists paid a big price as they were killed and maimed by heavy-handed soldiers and police.

Protestors burned buildings and vehicles – valued at R5billion.  

The uprising caught SADC’s attention but King Mswati III has since not acted on SADC’s advice  to convene a dialogue with all the pro-democracy formations in the country.

He convened an isibaya (byre) gathering instead that for all intents and purposes stifles dissenting voices.