Welcome to the inquiry with me, Paul Connolly. Each week, one question for expert witnesses

and an answer. Close to midnight, on July 8th, a convoy of government vehicles sped through

the rural town of Canja in South Africa. The final destination, a prison in the small

town of Estkort, the prisoner in transit, former president Jacob Zuma. It marked the end

of a standoff between Zuma and the authorities he once governed, a long fought stillburned

battle to avoid a historic fall from grace. In the days that followed far outside the

walls as fortified prison cell, protests erupted in two of the country's most densely populated

regions, one of them Zuma's home province of Quazulunital. Those protests soon turned

to days of losing, arson, rioting and extreme violence, some of the worst scene in South Africa

since the end of the apartheid regime. Many analysts believe Jacob Zuma's arrest and

imprisonment probably triggered the protests, but others see deep-rooted, simmering societal

issues as being responsible for the deadly and destructive escalation. So this week we're

asking what's really behind the South African riots? Part one, the spark.

I know former president Jacob Zuma very well. I've met him on numerous occasions and I've

even interviewed him at his presidential residence. My name is Milton Encosi. I am a senior

research fellow at Africa Asia Dialogues and I am a former BBC News correspondent.

Our first expert witness starts by telling me about Jacob Zuma. The man, the former president,

now a convicted criminal. President Jacob Zuma is a very affable individual,

incredibly charming, hugely symbolically humble, does not have any ego presence when you're

with him and he is known for that and South Africans loved that humility. Zuma, a bold spectacle,

now 79-year-old man with a towering presence and a trademark chuckle, was once a celebrated political

figure. He was jailed for ten years in 1963 for fighting the racist system of apartheid.

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