The Soweto suburb of Diepkloof should be renamed in honour of activist, doctor and businessman Nthato Motlana, businessman Richard Maponya told mourners at a memorial service at the Regina Mundi Church on Thursday.

"I don't know if this is a good forum to say how can Soweto remember Dr Motlana," Maponya told the hundreds of people gathered to pay their last respects.

"If I had a magic wand, influence... I would name Diepkloof Ga (place of) Motlana," said Maponya.

It was where Motlana had operated a successful surgery, one which was open 24 hours a day at a time when he was one of the only doctors in Soweto — and at which he saved many a life by removing a policeman's bullet.

Motlana (87), died of cancer at his home in Johannesburg on Sunday.

A hush over in the landmark church as it filled with mourners lifted when they broke into song at the arrival of a smiling former president Nelson Mandela, his arm around his wife Graca Machel.

Motlana was in the dock with Mandela and 18 others in the 1952 Defiance Campaign Trial.

The couple embraced members of the grieving Motlana family before taking their places in the wing-back chairs specially situated next to family members in the front row of the church.

The president's absence

Just a few moments earlier, former president Thabo Mbeki and his wife Zanele had comforted Motlana's grieving widow Zanele and his ex-wife, Sally, whom they flanked as she entered the church.

"Mr President," Maponya started his tribute to Motlana, then hurriedly added: "I don't know if Mr President is here."

Neither President Kgalema Motlanthe nor ANC president Jacob Zuma was among the mourners at the church.

When the laughter and whispers subsided, and after a few words in the ear of Mbeki he pointedly beamed as he unrepentantly began again: "Mr President..."

Extolling the virtues of Motlana as a father, friend and brother, Maponya described him as a great leader. "He was not the kind of leader we see today," he added to applause and exclamations.

He had led his community with "dignity and respect".

A reference to Cope

In a thinly-veiled reference to the recent bitter breakaway from the ANC by the newly formed Congress of the People, Maponya said it was to him and Motlana that disgruntled ANC members had turned many years ago —before the formation of the Pan Africanist Congress.

Sitting in a kitchen, the two men had asked the others what troubled them about the ANC.

They had replied: "The ANC is departing from the policies that we all know. There are many in the Communist Party in the ANC and they are the biggest... element we do not understand."

Maponya and Motlana told them to let them fight it out within the organisation.

"They were adamant; said 'we are breaking away'. We left them and they did their thing.

"All the time we know and respect the fact that the breaking away is just an element that is dissatisfied. They will come back home...

"Motlana, today, is asking us what are we doing in the ANC; what are we doing in this organisation that liberated us from that terrible law that oppressed us."

'A sad day'

Maponya was one of hundreds of mourners who spent the better part of an hour caught up in a traffic jam near the Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital, where Johannesburg metro police had set up a major roadblock, seemingly oblivious to the event taking place just a few kilometres away.

Motlanthe on Tuesday declared four days of national mourning for Motlana, with the flag of the Republic to be flown at half-mast until his funeral on Saturday. The funeral service will be held at the University of the Witwatersrand Great Hall from 9am.

Eulogies to Motlana were delivered on Thursday by Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo, community leader Tom Manthata, cardiologist Professor Patrick Mokgobo, Maponya and the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund's Sibongile Mkhabela.

"This is indeed a sad day. A true son of Africa is no more," said Masondo, describing him as a trail-blazer and pioneer and urging people to learn from his lessons and take up where he had left off.

"You are all beautiful, You are all great. You have all come to share sincere tears," said Manthata.

There would never be another Nthato Harrison Motlana, unique in so many ways, Mokgobo said in his farewell to his colleague.

He had had a special sensitivity for his community's needs and the ability to appropriately respond to them, was forthright and fearless, and fair with both his criticism of either friend or foe, sombre and dedicated.

Dignitaries in attendance

Two pigeons soared out from above the crucifix during the service, the grey birds rising on the rays of light streaming through the church's stained glass windows as the choir's voices rang out in tribute to the doctor the people loved.

Among the dignitaries paying their last respects: SA Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni, businessman Tokyo Sexwale, Justice Edwin Cameron, advocate George Bizos, and Gauteng Premier Paul Mashatile.

Also there were: Pearl Luthuli, the granddaughter of Chief Albert Luthuli, who was President-General of the ANC from December 1952 until his death in 1967; singer Sipho "Hotstix" Mabuse; and Mohumagadi Semane, mother of the king of the Bafokng of Rustenburg.

Winnie Madikizela-Mandela made an unobtrusive entrance just after the service started, with her daughter Princess Zenani Mandela-Dlamini.

They sat, not with Motlana's family, but with a host of other dignitaries in the front pew.

Motlana is survived by six children, 11 grandchildren and a great grandchild.

Sapa