Written by ZINOBULALI GODUKA
31st January 2026
At a time when township classrooms were a battle ground against Bantu education and the enforcement of it by the National Party government, Tiro rose to the occasion of teaching his students about the history of black South Africans. Set in a small town called Dinokana in the North West at the height of apartheid, where women are hosed by small white boys while the community watches, afraid to intervene. White boys getting away with murder, police lying about activists deaths at John Vorster Square. In Dinokana, promising young lives are turned into cautionary tales. Where do black people look for their pride?
Enter’s Onkgopotse Abrahams Ramuthibi Tiro, Dinokana’s finest played by Ayanda ka Nobakabonwa. A devout black consciousness activist and later, a teacher whose mandate is razor sharp - to tell black history from black people’s perspective. Born in 1947 in Dinokana and assassinated in Botswana through a parcel bomb in 1974, ka Nobakabonwa zips between the present and the past, resurrecting Tiro’s passion for the emancipation of the black mind. Through a jazzy-paced-parody rap painting a possible picture if black people could own the land. We are given the frustration of the youth stemming from the legislated burden of blackness. This made me think of this quote “ If this is your land, where are your stories?’’. The play is saying- black people cannot tell the stories of their land because it has been stolen and systematically kept so through a distorted history. And education is the key that continuously indoctrinates, holds captive the black mind thus making it close to impossible to be free, but not under Tiro’s watch.
As you walk into the theatre - you immediately realise that you as an audience member are part of the story as Tiro’s student. This is where he highlights the key moment in South African resistance against apartheid, putting names to the movement achievements. He attempts to instill the pride of black people through this nightmare to which he is trying too hard to awake from called history. Above all the township chaos, Tiro’s ToughLoop Testimony is about land dispossession,education and most importantly Tiro’s fatal contribution to a free South Africa. Ayanda ka Nobakabonwa, the writer and performer of in this production makes use of a juicy satire to poke at the absurdity of whiteness and white consumerism in a country where majority of people are bound by the aftermath of all the laws that puts the country’s land in their hands. From mountains to animals all regulated, gated for the benefit of the white man, his comfort, his tears, his coke, his lies, his greed even his jealous induced-wars. “Those are not World Wars.They are white wars” challenges Tiro arguing that in order for anything to change - the language to which we term things has to be stripped of its lies and be told as it is. After all that deliberate choice of words is meant to treat the black man as inferior, we all do not agree with that, do we?
Ayanda ka Nobakabonwa switches between all the characters, from young Tiro, his uncle, the community members and friends, the white boys, with honest ease, not trying too hard to change his voice or add unnecessary tricks to distinguish them. The variety of delivery forms keeps you glued to the action, there is black consciousness inspired rap, narration, there is acting, and there is also a bit of mime. All an overflowing pot of creativity.
Though posing relevant and much needed discussions in the greater society, the ideas and storylines are clamber for attention. There is an imbalance between the core storyline of Tiro and the history lessons making both of them float on the surface. The history lesson does however, make you go “fine, I will read black consciousness texts again. I will look up the frontier wars” whether that was the intention or not, a win is a win. Perhaps choosing one or two historical moments to focus on would have given Tiro’s life the spotlight that this play is attempting. Writing and staging about a real person’s life can be tricky in this way because it can get in the way of your own intention by wanting to write about everything in their life instead of a moment in time.
This production needs to go to the people, especially schools to do what its content is attempting. South African history is still much distorted and lacking in curriculum. Tiro’s ToughLoop Testimony has a potential to entice a young radical mind.
Tiro’s ToughLoop Testimony is Directed by Mfundo Zono, written by Ayanda Ka Nobakabonwa, Lighting Designed by Titi and Stage Managed by Mojalefa Koyana. The production won an Ovation Award in National Arts Festival 2025. It had multiple nominations by the Fleur du Cap and was first premiered at The Baxter Zabalaza Theatre Festival where it scooped Best Actor, Best Script and Finest of the Fest.