Nkwenkwe Nkomo

Nkwenkwe Nkomo
Nkwenkwe Nkomo as Chief Scout of South Africa in 1997
Chief Scout, South African Scout Association
In office 1995–2005
Preceded by	Garnet de la Hunt
Succeeded by	Vukile Mehana

Nkwenkwe Nkomo of South Africa is the group deputy chairman of FCB SA, South Africa's largest marketing communication group, and chairperson of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) of South Africa. He also served as one of 12 elected volunteer members of the World Scout Committee, the main executive body of the World Organization of the Scout Movement. As an anti-apartheid student activist in the 1970s, he was one of the so-called "SASO nine" imprisoned on Robben Island for six years.

Nkomo speaks nine South African languages. "That came through living in the township, not through a formal program," says Nkomo. Nkwenkwe is Xhosa for "little boy", and Nkomo means "cow", so his name means "cowboy".

Nkomo always wears a signature fez perched on his head.

In the 1970s, Nkomo was active in opposition to the apartheid system in South Africa. He was a student leader in the South African Students' Organisation (SASO), which broke away from the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), and a national organiser of the Black People's Convention. He and eight other SASO leaders (known as the "SASO nine") were arrested in 1974 and charged with "conspiring to overturn the state by unconstitutional means". The Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko testified at length in his defence, a year before Biko was beaten to death by security policemen. The accused (including Strini Moodley and Mosiuoa Lekota) were convicted and sentenced to prison. Nkomo spent two years in prison while on trial and six years on Robben Island, in the same prison as Nelson Mandela and many other anti-apartheid leaders.