Owen Ndlovu, found dead in Thokoza after Katlehong hijacking

Owen Ndlovu, the former SABC Sports presenter and music rights activist, was found dead in Thokoza after he was hijacked and kidnapped in Katlehong while collecting his wife from church. He was 54.

As the Mail & Guardian reported on 16 September, the death has been confirmed and the circumstances are the subject of a police investigation. That is the position: a man is dead, a case exists, and the details that decide everything else are with the South African Police Service.

Ndlovu was a familiar voice in South African sport. He covered football and other events for the SABC, and through his production company, Michaelowen Productions, he worked on Premier Soccer League radio programming. Later he moved into music advocacy, working with Artists United and the SABC Summer Song of the Year concept.

What he was doing when it happened

He was collecting his wife from church in Katlehong when the hijacking and kidnapping took place.

Katlehong and Thokoza sit next to each other on the East Rand, in a corridor of the province where the SAPS records hijacking as a standing category of serious crime and where the road between a church and a home is an ordinary evening drive. That is the setting, and it is the part a reader outside the East Rand will not picture.

The work he leaves behind

Ndlovu’s second career was the harder one. Music rights in South Africa are administered through the Southern African Music Rights Organisation, which licenses public performance and broadcast and distributes royalties to writers and publishers, and through the collecting bodies that handle neighbouring rights for performers and recordings. For most working musicians, the gap between a song being played and money arriving has been the central complaint for years.

Ndlovu argued that case in public, through Artists United and through the SABC Summer Song of the Year concept, and he argued it outspokenly. That is a specific contribution and it is worth naming: he spent his later years on the paperwork side of the industry, which is where artists are usually least represented and least heard.

What the police have, and what they do not

The investigation is at the stage where the facts that matter most are not yet public. The police have not released the sequence of events between the Katlehong hijacking and the discovery of the body in Thokoza, have not said how many people are being sought, and have not announced an arrest.

That absence is information. It means the case is open, and it means the next public development will be a police statement, a court appearance or both.

Hijacking, kidnapping and murder are crimes under South African law, and each carries its own charge. Kidnapping and murder fall under the common law. The SAPS investigates them through its detective services, and the National Prosecuting Authority decides on prosecution once a docket is placed before it.

Anyone with information on the Katlehong and Thokoza events can give it to the SAPS on 10111 or to Crime Stop on 08600 10111, and a case number can be quoted to the investigating officer.

What the family and the industry now face

For his family, the immediate practical weight is the same one every South African family in this position carries: a death certificate, a post-mortem, an inquest process if the cause of death is not settled by a prosecution, and a funeral to arrange while a docket is still being built.

For the music industry, the loss lands on a file that has been open for years. The people who fight for performers’ royalties in this country are few, they are not well paid for it, and Ndlovu was one of them.

Readers of his generation of sports broadcasting will remember him for the catchphrases as much as the commentary. That is not a small thing in a country where the voice on the radio is often the only company a long drive has.

What happens next

The SAPS investigation continues, and the next dated step will be a police statement on the progress of the case or a first appearance in the Katlehong Magistrates’ Court if an arrest is made. The Enquirer has asked the SAPS for the sequence of events, the number of suspects sought and whether a task team has been assigned, and will report the answer.

Source: Mail & Guardian, A Colourful Life Cut Short: Tribute to Owen Ndlovu, 16 September 2026.