Samson Ndou

Ndou was arrested in May 1969[3] and detained without trial for several months before being charged with violations of the Suppression of Communism Act. In State v Samson Ndou and 21 Others, the state alleged that Ndou and various other ANC and SACTU supporters – among them Rita Ndzanga and Winnie Mandela – had in various ways sought to further the aims of the illegal ANC, including through conspiracy to commit sabotage in Johannesburg.[4] All 22 defendants were acquitted and the trial was regarded as a political failure for the apartheid state, because it had revealed publicly that, despite the intense political repression of the decade, ANC supporters continued to mobilise underground.[5][4]

Decades later, Ndou testified to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that he had been severely tortured by the Security Branch during his detention in 1969, as well as during a later detention in the summer of 1981.[3] He and the other 21 triallists were awarded the Order of Luthuli in Silver in 2017 for "their brave fight against apartheid".[4]

Upon his release, Ndou resumed his underground work, at the time focused primarily on recruitment activities and political education, such as through proliferation of the illegal Freedom Charter.[2] He and other SACTU loyalists became increasingly involved in the Black Allied Workers' Union (BAWU), and Samson himself remained in contact with SACTU's exiled leadership abroad.[2] However, when Rita Ndzanga broke away from BAWU in 1980, Ndou joined her in the new General and Allied Workers' Union (GAWU).[2] He was later president of GAWU.[6]

In 1983, Ndou made a speech at the Cape Town launch of the United Democratic Front (UDF), a new popular front against apartheid.[7][8] He was also elected to the executive committee of the Transvaal Indian Congress after the congress was relaunched in the same year (though he was not himself Indian).[9][6] In the mid-1980s, he became increasingly involved in running the UDF's national office as many of the front's national leaders were detained.[7] During the same period, he was a key figure in organising the union unity talks that resulted in the formation of the Congress of South African Trade Unions in 1985.[10]

In South Africa's first post-apartheid elections in 1994, Ndou was not immediately elected to the National Assembly,[11] but he joined during the legislative term, filling a casual vacancy in the aNC caucus.[12] He was re-elected to full terms in the assembly in 1999[1] and 2004.[13] He served in his seat until 9 June 2006, when he resigned.[14] During this period, ahead of the 2000 local elections, Ndou stood briefly as the ANC's mayoral candidate for Thohoyandou, Limpopo; however, it soon transpired that he had registered to vote in another city (Cape Town) and therefore was ineligible to stand.[15]

After leaving Parliament, Ndou represented the ANC in the Limpopo Provincial Legislature, where he served as a Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Safety and Security under Premier Sello Moloto.[16] In late 2008, when Mosiuoa Lekota and Sam Shilowa announced their intention to break away from the ANC and form a new party, the Mail & Guardian reported that Ndou was among those who had shown an interest in the new initiative.[17] However, Ndou remained with the ANC and continued in the safety and security portfolio until the 2009 general election,[18] after which he left the legislature.

In the 2016 local elections, Ndou was elected to represent the ANC as a local councillor in the Vhembe District Municipality. He was also appointed as chief whip in the council, serving under mayor Florence Radzilani.[19][20]

In 2021, the ANC's Provincial Executive Committee in Limpopo appointed Ndou as a member of the party's seven-member provincial Integrity Commission.[21]