AFTER THE BELL: Busting the bluffers one bogus qualification at a time

A pattern of unverified credentials and confident lying allowed DA candidate Abdulkader Elyas to advance through university and political structures largely unchecked, exposing how easily bluffers exploit institutional gaps. Universities’ refusal to maintain searchable graduate records is a key failure enabling this kind of fraud to persist across sectors, from business to politics.

Many years ago, when I was about half the age I am now, I was struck with a strange problem.

I was working at a news radio station in London and was still really learning what on earth these things of journalism and life really are. It was a time of much fun, hangovers and occasional youthful heartbreak. A part of my life I’m very glad I got to enjoy.

A new person had started, someone who was easily 15 years older than me, he and I were assigned to work side by side. I started to notice that the quality of his work was very poor, and I had to often fix problems that turned out to have been created on his watch.

He would get quite defensive whenever someone questioned him and would point to his experience in the field. Even for some as imbued with self-confidence as I just didn’t know what to do. How could this elder person, someone with so much experience, just be so weak?

My bosses didn’t seem to notice and I couldn’t really approach them. Following the time-honoured tradition of youngsters everywhere, I went and found a quiet moment with a much older and experienced person, someone I really trusted.

As I started to explain my problem, he listened for a moment, until I mentioned the person’s name. Immediately he just smiled, and said: “Stephen, he’s just a bluffer; he won’t be here for long.”

So innocent was I at the time (this was before I started reporting on South African politicians) that the idea had just never occurred to me. This guy was a liar. About his qualifications, his experience, all of it. And he had managed to bluff his way into this job where he was now causing chaos.

Once I realised that, it was much easier to deal with. All the problems were him, not me, and as more and more of my colleagues realised what we were dealing with, so people would help me work around him.

I wonder if there are some people in the DA who have that realisation right now. Rebecca Davis’ fantastic piece about Abdulkader Elyas and his track record of lies is an incredible example of a person who lied, and lied big!

Amazingly, it looks like a student, the president of the SRC at UCT at the time, was able to see through this guy pretty quickly. It makes one wonder what a former UCT SRC president, Geordin Hill-Lewis, missed…

The full story of how Elyas was able to worm his way into the DA’s candidate list for Cape Town, and the role he appears to have been playing in their campaigning machinery has yet to be written. However, like so many people before him, he was clearly able to sell a good story.

I think it’s a sign of our slightly desperate times that we sometimes believe people when they’re clearly lying.