Wilton Zimasile Mkwayi OMSG (17 December 1923 – 24 July 2004) was an African National Congress veteran and one of the first six members of Umkonto weSizwe to be sent for military training.

[3] Mkwayi was one of the 156 co-accused in the 1956 Treason Trial for supporting the Freedom Charter calling for a non-racial democracy and a Socialist-based economy.

From Lesotho he journeyed to Swaziland, Congo, Ghana and the UK to meet the British Trades Union Congress (TUC).

After Govan Mbeki, Raymond Mhlaba, Walter Sisulu and other co-defendants were arrested on 11 July 1963 and Nelson Mandela was already in prison, Mkwayi briefly took command of Umkonto weSizwe.

He was sentenced in December 1964 in the little Rivonia Trial and sent to Robben Island, where he met Nelson Mandela and Govan Mbeki.

During his imprisonment, he was one of three prisoners – along with Mandela and Mac Maharaj – planning to escape during a visit to a dentist in Cape Town.

[3] He was elected to the National Executive Committee of the ANC in July 1991 and he continued to serve until 1997, when he stepped down due to his ill health.

[3] In 1985, in a Robben Island Prison Ceremony, he married his childhood sweetheart Ntombifuthi Irene Mhlongo and they had two children.