First-year Politics students at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) were treated to a special lecture on Monday, 12 May 2025, featuring renowned radio host and politics scholar Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi. His talk, titled ‘The State of South African Politics’, offered students critical insights into the current political landscape.
Dr Ndlozi, who hosts Power Talk, a radio show on Power 98.7 FM, broadcasts live from the University’s Auckland Park Kingsway campus. His show airs daily from 9 am to 12 pm and discusses the burning issues of the day, delving deeper into trending news and current affairs topics with expert commentary.
The lecture also doubled as the launch of a new segment on his show, which will be called ‘Political School’. The segment, Dr Ndlozi explained, “Will interact with academic communities of the social, economic and political studies across different universities. The feature will be guest-driven with lectures and robust round table discussions given on key insightful, science-based, expert commentary on economic, social and political questions facing our country”.
The class of over 400 students was treated to a masterclass exploring the history of the country and how this morphed into what is considered modern-day politics. The lecture covered everything from how the arrival of the Dutch East India Company (DEIC) to the current political landscape is shaped, and what challenges it faces.
In the lecture, Dr Ndlozi encouraged the young people to use this political science class to remain connected to schools of thought such as Pan Africanism and to reject popular notions and ideas, especially those that are not patriotic to the country or the continent.
He used the lecture to educate on the challenges of privatising national assets.
Students had the opportunity to engage with Dr Ndlozi and quiz him on burning issues such as neo-colonialism brought on by China’s investment into Africa, the impact of Christianity on African solidarity and the impact of state.
“We have a duty to rethink our future in the interest of resolving our unique problems. Decolonisation, therefore, means finding African solutions for African problems. Where this inheritance of the state, the machinery called the state, must be jealously guarded. Rebuilt as an instrument to break through the problems of poverty, unemployment, disease, inequality and war.
He encouraged the students to always embrace critical thinking and to embrace multidisciplinary studies: “Your task at the beginning of a Political Science class is to refuse to study politics without the consideration of the economy. [Your task] is to reimagine a better future for Africa”.
