Mysterious Death of Young African Inventor
Nkosinathi Nkomo African student from the University of Cape Town died at the age of 24-years-old in December 2017. Just months before his death, he had gained national media attention for his water purification system called AquaRenu. An invention that could help South Africa’s water drought crisis. Questions and conspiracy theories began to arise about Nkosinathi Nkomo death. When one particular tweet from Western Cape Premier, Helen Zille of Retief Krige. Kringe is a white South African engineer with the same invention under a new name ‘Waterloo’ a few days ago.
Congratulations Retief Krige, the industrial designer who created Waterloo, the quick and easy way of using your shower water to flush your loo. Affordable too! https://t.co/HOyBqAyDpp pic.twitter.com/PIuHFeeGMQ
— Helen Zille (@helenzille) February 7, 2018
Nkosinathi Nkomo’s AquaRenu, began gaining attention in October 2017. By December he was dead after allegedly falling from a multi-story building in Cape Town.
At the time of his death police didn’t offer much info other than there was no foul play.
“It’s been alleged that the deceased fell from the balcony of his fifth-floor apartment at the hotel. No foul play is suspected at this moment. ” – Western Cape police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Andre Traut
Nkomo’s father “ruled out” suicide for his son’s death. He was sure Nkomo had no enemies, owed no debts and said that “the truth will come out one day.”
Twitter Unleashes Fiery
Twitter users found the timing of Krige’s product unveiling suspicious. Conspiracy theorists claim that Krige’s invention was “convenient” following Nkomo’s death. Other critics noted that while Zille was present at Krige’s product launch and ignored the launch of Nkomo’s AquaRenu system.
Speaking to Huffpost, Zille said the wild, unsupported allegations being made against Krige were unacceptable. “It’s outrageous to accuse other people of the most nefarious things”.
According to Huffington Post she said that she had read about both concepts, WaterLoo and AquaRenu, and that they were two quite different inventions. Many entrepreneurs are now getting into greywater systems, she pointed out, so it isn’t fair to just assume theft of ideas. And if she got an invite to the launch of Nkomo’s AquaRenu, she insisted, she would certainly have attended, as she did when Krige invited her to the WaterLoo launch. She undertook to contact Nkomo’s surviving partners to learn more about AquaRenu.
While most of the anger and accusations have taken place online. Some have called for South Africa authorities to take a deeper look into Nkomo’s death. What happened to #NkosinathiNkomo?
