He resigned with a colleague, Stephan Hofstatter, in October 2018 after the newspaper publicly apologised for a number of powerful stories they wrote between 2011 and 2016 which were found to be not reflecting an honest truth.

Seeing the investigative talents he expressed at the news agency, the Sunday Times headhunted him and he began his first article with the national broadsheet in 1999 where he broke significant exposés - exposing the SABC boss Enoch Sithole's illegal residency in South Africa and his fake qualifications as well as the Department of Home Affairs's director-general Albert Mokoena's running of a private basketball team from government office.

[14] Suggestions abound that the arrest was politically motivated, coming as it did just a day after Bheki Cele, reacting to an article by Wa Afrika which detailed the police chief's involvement in a dubitable R500,000,000 lease agreement, described him as "shady" and hinted at reprisal.

The prosecution claims that Wa Afrika was in possession of a forged letter of resignation from Mpumalanga premier David Mabuza, whose denial and formal complaint at the Kabokweni police station in Nelspruit it was that culminated in the arrest.

The arrest took place on Wednesday, 4 August, at 11:15 outside The Sunday Times building in Rosebank, Johannesburg, in spite of the fact that Wa Afrika's lawyer, who has since echoed claims of political meddling, had already negotiated for him to hand himself over at the Kabokweni police station.

At 19:00 the following day, the newspaper approached the High Court in Pretoria, bringing an urgent application for the journalist's release, which acting Judge Johan Kruger ordered three hours later, following an agreement with the state.

[17][18] In 2004, Mzilikazi wa Afrika was fired from Sunday Times following a discovery that he had close ties with businesswoman Soraya Beukes who had been arrested for defrauding the South African government in the Travelgate.

In a full-page apology titled We Got it Wrong, And For That We Apologise, editor Bongani Siqoko said the paper apologised for the reportage of allegations of police killings in Cato Manor in KwaZulu-Natal, claims that the South African government illegally deported Zimbabweans to face execution in their country and reports that the South African Revenue Service (Sars) ran a politically aligned spying unit under Pravin Gordhan.