On a tree-lined avenue, the mansion where Nelson Mandela spent his last years — and died — stands out.
Its high walls are stained and perilously cracked; the driveway is pock-marked with weeds. A security scanner, visible through the gate, is a rusting relic from an era when the property of the late South African president was a magnet for world leaders and superstars.
Since Mandela’s death in 2013, No 9, 12th Avenue has become a forlorn landmark on Johannesburg’s tourist loop and one easy to miss. A pile of stones on the overgrown verge, scrawled with faded tributes, is the only clue to its famous former resident.
Writing in his will Mandela, who died aged 95, said he hoped the once grand property would be a place for his family to gather “to maintain its unity long after my death”. That dream, like many of his other ideals born of the end of apartheid in South Africa, has disappointed.
Instead, the house Mandela moved to in 1998 with his third wife, Graça Machel, after he stepped down from power, has become a symbol of his fought-over legacy. In a raid on the address last week police found a stolen car, drugs paraphernalia and an unlicensed gun. A video of Mbuso Mandela being led away by officers showed his striking resemblance to his celebrated grandfather. Mbuso, 33, who was living at the property with friends, is being investigated with four others on carjacking and weapons charges.
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One of Mandela’s 17 grandchildren, Mbuso was known to the police after previous arrests on separate allegations of rape, failure to pay child maintenance and holding an unlicensed gun.
But Thursday’s raid is not even the most unseemly twist in the family’s protracted battle over the Mandela spoils and traditions.
Even before his death, relatives were fighting publicly over the location of his grave. The secret exhumation and reburial of three of Mandela’s children who pre-deceased him, ordered by his heir apparent Mandla Mandela, had to be settled in court. Relatives’ plans to capitalise on their famous names with, among others, wine labels, a reality-TV series and a fashion range, fuelled more disputes.
The dilapidation of the home in the upmarket suburb of Houghton reflects a stalemate between the family’s various factions. In his effort to please them all, Mandela had bequeathed the house to his Nelson Mandela Trust to decide for “what special purpose the house may be used”, while expressing a wish that it host family get-togethers as well as accommodating three named, orphaned grandchildren, who include Mbuso.
Until the property’s eventual transfer to the trust was finalised in recent months, the house was left to its fate. The parallel decline of Johannesburg, where the taps are often dry and the affluent are selling up, is blamed by many in the city on Mandela’s beloved African National Congress (ANC).
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Wim Trengove, a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Trust, said a decision would be made on the Mandela house soon “in consultation with the family” and a large overdue bill to the local authority settled. “There are differences of opinion to overcome,” he told The Times.
Some relatives would like the property to become a museum. Mbuso and others have objected, claiming it should remain their private residence. A major challenge to the museum idea is that any meaningful Mandela artefacts were stripped from its rooms by his oldest daughter, Makaziwe Mandela.
More than 100 lots, including Mandela’s ID book, a hearing aid, dozens of his shirts and the key to his Robben Island jail cell were expected to fetch up to £2 million at auction in New York. The sale was suspended by legal action brought by heritage officials in South Africa in 2024.
A separate dispute over the estate of Mandela’s second wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, who died in 2018, has set a new battleground.
Johannes Cassanga, 47, a caretaker at the Houghton house, said he used to be proud to work for a family which had since become an embarrassment.
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“It’s disrespectful of the ancestors,” he said at the gate that had formerly opened for princes rather than the police. “Mandela is a big father to all the country.”
