Last year, Nkosinathi Nkomo, a 24-year-old Soweto-born and third-year Civil Engineering student at the University of Cape Town, was not able to put his name down in 2017 because he was short of funds.
With Cape Town’s water crisis on the rise, Nkosinathi Nkomo thought he would put a handful of the wisdom he had taken up over the years into operation to raise funds and get his hands on a way out of the deteriorating hindrance. He would fork his snag around into a “affordable” prospect and consequently, ended up successfully concocting a greywater system that could be utilized in South African homes and areas of business.
Nkomo brought a company named AquaRenu into being, which had the purpose of punching down the volume of water that was being used by people at home and work by up to 80% per month. He included his friends to help him carry this out and soon, there was a team of four. He was very passionate about the success story of his establishment and, more importantly, to knocking this mounting crunch on an extinction. His vision of AquaRenu was to grow it into a well-acknowledged trademark on a national scale with the help of their rousing designs that utilizes rainwater and grey-water as core bases of water for irrigation and toilet-flushing for substantial properties, such as schools and multi-use buildings, and wished to have their manufactured articles be a customary element in every normal South African home.
In regards with AquaRenu, Nkosinathi Nkomo had said, “I work with a team that is passionate to be part of the solution and is always willing to give a hand to provide South Africa with new solutions to the water issue.”
“We want to make the greywater and rainwater harvesting systems affordable for the average South African household while delivering a service that is comparable to other expensive manufactures,” he had further added.
AquaRenu began gaining mighty recognition in October, but by the time it reached December, Nkosinathi Nkomo was dead after allegedly falling from a high-rise building in Cape Town. And then, in early February 2018, only a couple of months following Nkosinathi Nkomo’s death, a white man by the name of Retief Krige leapt forward (perhaps, coincidentally?) with the same theory the once-bustling young creator had.
South Africans were soon in high dudgeon, pulling in the rest of the world to set the limelight on the matter that had quickly grown into a dynamic of white-supremacy and racism, as they claimed Retief Krige had undoubtedly luxuriated off the genius of Nkosinathi Nkomo and was now shamelessly bathing in the credit that should have solely gone to the originator. According to them, Nkomo’s genius was not just for periods of “crisis,” per say, but was believed to operate as a long-standing maintainable solution. People were unyielding that both the ideas were one in the same and that Nkomo had indeed been robbed off his triumph. It did not take the media outlets, tabloids, and conspiracy theorists much time to get the wind of it and start the ball rolling into the field of speculations.
And perhaps, they should continue doing so. The sudden death of a Soweto-born student and inventor Nkosinathi Nkomo is patently questionable and months later, still wearing a veil in mystery. It demands justice.
Furthermore, upon much pressing frenzy from people, Western Cape Police did not even bother to offer a mile or any valuable information that would be worth clarifying his precise cause or reason behind his unexpected passing. Their spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Andre Traut, only confirmed that a body of a 24-year-old man was discovered on the grounds of Upper East Side Hotel in the small hours of Sunday morning.
“It has been alleged that the deceased fell from the balcony of his fifth-floor apartment at the hotel. No foul play is suspected at this moment and an inquest case was registered for investigation purposes,” Colonel Andre Traut said in a statement.
More conspiracy theories (and maybe, the truth) swelled into a pile when the word of Nkomo’s father and family member caught the public eye. On the sidelines of his son’s memorial service in Orlando East, Soweto, Moses Ndimande said that Nkomo didn’t have to kill himself. Moses said that neither did his son owe anyone anything nor did he have any debts or a bond that he was struggling to pay.
“The truth will come out one day as to what really happened on that fateful day,” his father concluded.
Another family member, who wanted not to have their identity out, stated that they hoped the purported video clip that is rumored to have grabbed a hold of his atrocious death would surface and that justice would be served.
This further upholds the question: why would Nkomo slither on lather whilst scrambling out of bed on the pinnacle of a Cape Town building—right on the heels of presenting a ground-breaking water decontamination idea to help relieve Cape Town’s water crisis?
Photo Credit: Atlanta Black Star
