King Sabata passed away in exile in Zambia in 1986, Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo returned to South Africa as a 26-year-old in 1989 and was restored as the King of the AbaThembu after years of interference in royal and traditional affairs by the apartheid government during which Kaiser Matanzima, who ranked only as a senior Thembu chief and who took advantage of the Bantu Authorities system, was declared “Paramount Chief”.
[3] In July 2014, a group of Thembu chiefs wrote to President of South Africa Jacob Zuma requesting that Dalindyebo be removed, claiming he was an "evil king" and "not fit to rule".
[5][6] In December 2015, as Dalindyebo was due to start serving his sentence, he made last-minute efforts to avoid incarceration by petitioning Zuma for a presidential pardon.
According to reports in local newspapers, the king arrived at the royal residence, the Great Place, at 2 a.m. on the morning of 13 March carrying an axe.
[13] In the runup to the 2021 South African municipal elections, Dalindyebo received a cow and was promised a Mercedes-Benz SUV by the Economic Freedom Fighters, after which he announced his support for the party and called on the nation to do the same.