From representing former first lady Marike de Klerk’s killer, to security police inquiries and flying to Thailand on a dime to fight for a former beauty queen in one of SA’s most famous drug smuggling cases, is the man they call Bond — Bond Nyoka.
At the age of 67, still sporting his signature slicked back greying hair, the only thing that has changed about him over the years is that he has traded in his designer clothes for a more traditional look.
There is also a deep sense of humility behind his eyes.
The firstborn child to a doctor and a nurse, Mpumelelo Nyoka, or Bond as he is known, grew up in then-Uitenhage before moving to Port Elizabeth at the age of five.
With his parents both in the medical field, the expectation was on him from a young age to follow in their footsteps.
The only problem was, Nyoka hated science and maths and he knew becoming a doctor was not to be, though it would at first disappoint his father.
Luckily, his younger brother went on to become an ENT specialist, so Nyoka took the gap to follow his own path.
It was in 1975 while at Cowan High School in New Brighton when the school youth club travelled to Swaziland for a cultural exchange and his eyes were opened to a whole new world.
He found himself falling in love with what he still describes today as his “true love”.
“I remember watching a debate and being so impressed,” he said.
Once back in the modest corridors of Cowan High, he started the school’s first-ever debating club.
And though it was short-lived due to the 1976 Soweto uprising, Nyoka had already decided that he wanted to become a lawyer.
In 1978, he enrolled at Fort Hare University.
On his first day, he recalls going up to a law student to ask what he could expect.
“He looked at me and I remember his exact words.
“He said ‘law is like a jealous mistress, it needs constant attention’.
“He was right. I never had a girlfriend for three years, my books were my girlfriends.”
Due to the political climate at the time, many of his fellow black students dropped out, and at one stage Nyoka was the only law student in his class.
“I started attending lectures in the lecturer’s office, just the two of us.
“But for the very first time, I enjoyed school. I was excelling and my dad was proud of me.
“He even apologised for being so hard on me,” he said.
He said a standout student at Fort Hare at the time was now impeached judge John Hlophe.
The two were in the same hostel and Nyoka was in awe of his academic abilities.
“He would finish a two-hour exam in 30 minutes.
“We only ever saw him in the lecture room or the dining hall. His head was always buried in a book.
“I wanted to be more like him at the time because my father always used to say, ‘I am not giving you an inheritance, education is your inheritance’.”
Taught that knowledge was the key to success, Nyoka said every day he would walk to the corner shop to buy a copy of the newspaper and a Fanta Orange.
He would then drink his cooldrink and read every word in the newspaper.
He said he was teased about it and students started calling him “Fanta Orange”. Luckily, that nickname did not stick.
When other students, such as former National Prosecuting Authority head advocate Vusi Pikoli went into exile, Nyoka, partly at the insistence of his father, stayed put.
“My contribution was going to be through law, and I didn’t have the guts to leave my family to go into exile.”
But for decades, that decision haunted him.
“I had a void or guilt about not going into exile or being arrested.
“But now, looking back, I question if it would even have been worth it, politically.
“Things are turning, some of the noble goals are being reversed.”
After graduating with a double law degree, Nyoka returned to Gqeberha in 1985 to start his articles under retired Eastern Cape judge-president Cecil Somyalo.
The year 1985, the partial state of emergency, proved to be an important moment in the resistance against apartheid.
Between the disruptions and the killings, Nyoka remained determined.
One day, he found himself in front of an Afrikaans-speaking magistrate in New Brighton, arguing his first case all on his own.
Somyalo had told him moments before: “For this one, you are on your own.”
He remembers it as if it were yesterday, and prompted, admits it was probably because he won that day.
It was an assault case. His client had hit the complainant with a stick.
But he managed to get him off on self-defence.
His first pay cheque was R400, and he had never been prouder, especially considering that his father, in his youth, had charged patients R5 for a consult.
“Pre-1994 there were no copies of the docket.
“You had to prepare your cross-examination on the spot,” he said, pulling five different coloured ballpoint pens out of his pocket.
“And I have more in my car,” he said, laughing.
Five years later, everything changed when Nelson Mandela was released.
“The ’90s were about black enhancement,” he said.
Later that year, he started working with a firm in New Brighton.
Three years later, he went off on his own, and landed his big break in 1994.
He said he had been in Johannesburg with his wife to buy a BMW.
“We arrived back on a Sunday and went straight to the shop to buy The Weekend Post, even though it was a day late.
“Instead of driving around, enjoying my new green convertible, I found myself immersed in the story of Vanessa Goosen.”
He said he immediately picked up the phone and contacted the reporter.
“I said I am taking this case. I didn’t even tell my wife I was not being paid. No-one so young should be in that situation.
“So I flew to Johannesburg to meet her family, and then to Thailand out of my own pocket. Vanessa’s family couldn’t believe it.”
Goosen, who was unknowingly used as a drug mule, narrowly escaped the death penalty to spend 16 years in a Thai jail.
A chapter of her book about her journey is dedicated to Nyoka.
Nyoka also went on to represent Luyanda Mboniswa, who was convicted of the December 2001 murder of 64-year-old De Klerk.
She had been stabbed and strangled in the bathroom of her luxury Cape Town flat.
Mboniswa has since been paroled.
But with Nyoka’s successes, also came his downfall which saw him taken out of the game for 14 years.
He lost everything, even his personal bonds.
Nyoka was interdicted from practising in 2004 and struck from the roll in 2009 after stealing more than R400,000 from clients.
He paid back the money, but said he also paid a deep personal, emotional and material price for his mistakes.
He was finally readmitted in December 2018.
During that time, he said, he learnt a lot about himself.
He no longer has a penchant for designer clothes or an extravagant lifestyle.
“I prefer to blend in and look like a penguin,” he said, pointing to his black slacks, starched white shirt and black tie.
He counts the Pebco Three case, in which he has been actively fighting for justice for anti-apartheid activists Sipho Hashe, Champion Galela and Qaqawuli Godolozi, who were abducted and subsequently murdered in 1985 by members of the security police, as one of his most important roles in law to date.
But on a personal level, his greatest achievement remains his three daughters.
“This is what I call my plough-back service.
“When we come into this world, we are naked and with nothing. And you go back as you came. So plough back into your community,” he said.
And yes, he does loves James Bond.
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