There were some alluring pictures of Nompumelelo Ntuli (MaNtuli), one of President Jacob Zuma's three wives, in a fine black hat and veil, in various newspapers on Thursday.

Mantuli - along with various other powers behind various thrones, such as Sarah Macaulay, wife of British Prime Minister Gordin Brown, and Maria Margarita Barroso, wife of EU president Jose Manuel Barroso - had an audience with Pope Benedict at the Vatican on Wednesday, which is where the pictures were taken.

Mantuli is of course accompanying her husband to the G8 summit which is being held in earthquake-ravaged L'Aquila, Italy.

Zuma is leading a South African delegation that includes Minister of International Relations and Co-operation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Buyelwa Sonjica.

The Group of Eight (G8), we might remind ourselves, is a forum created by France in 1975 for the heads of governments of eight nations of the northern hemisphere - Canada France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States - to get together and sort out certain world problems, especially ones related to financial crisis, world development and climate change.

The so-called Outreach Five (O5) or Plus Five (5+) group - Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa - was subsequently invited, as notable representatives of the developing world (though China seems pretty developed to most of us), to join G8 deliberations.

Now, it must be pleasant to be able to choose from more than one wife to accompany one to a major international conference such as a meeting of the G8. But we must also hope that Zuma has his mind on other issues as well.

Today, very early in the morning, while most of us were still sleepily digesting our muesli, the G8's Africa Outreach Session started. Matters on the agenda include the effects of the global financial crisis on Africa, the aid that has been repeatedly promised to African countries by the G8, climate change, and development.

There are also likely to be talks about strengthening peace and security in Africa, piracy, trafficking of drugs and arms, illegal fishing and money laundering (the last one of which, ironically, was one of the charges laid against Zuma by the National Prosecuting Authority).

This session will also be attended by representatives of the other African countries that initiated the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) - Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal and Libya, and by Ethiopia, the AU Commission, and Angola.

But it is Zuma, as the president of South Africa, who will be in the spotlight.

And, as Max Lawson, the policy leader of Oxfam at the G8, said from L'Aquila yesterday, "Zuma really needs to speak out strongly and be heard.

"He is the only representative of Africa, which is the continent of the poorest nations in the world, and he must ask what happened to all the aid that was promised to Africa by the G8 - because it certainly hasn't materialised."

Lawson said that he hoped that Zuma would "seriously embarrass" his host, Sylvia Berlusconi of Italy, for all the back-pedalling on aid for developing nations that he has been doing during the last few days.

"The reality," said Lawson, "is that what has emerged from the last few days is that the world's rich countries are not taking responsibility for all sorts of things, especially climate change - in fact, they are blaming the 5+ nations - and ideally Zuma should speak out against this."

There are other good reasons why Zuma should try to make a bigger splash this morning than did his wife on Wednesday.

It has been 61 days since Zuma's inauguration. This is 39 days short of the 100 days that everyone, from opposition politicians to cartoonists, gave Zuma to produce some rabbits out of a hat - or from under his leopard skins.

Zuma still has a little time.

But as far as specific and hard-edged plans are concerned, ones that will help fulfill the promises made by Zuma and the ANC some two months ago, there has been a little too much silence.

Jeremy Gordin is author of Zuma: A biography. This article first appeared in the Daily Dispatch July 10 2009

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