Nandipha Magudumana
Quick Facts
Virgo
Biography
Nandipha Magudumana (née Sekeleni; otherwise known as Dr Nandipha) is a South African medical practitioner. Born and raised in Bizana, Eastern Cape, she is a celebrity doctor best known for making the Mail & Guardian 200 Young South Africans finalist, SADC Top 100 Young Leaders, and Top 20 Most Influential Young South Africans lists in 2018.
She was co-accused alongside her partner Thabo Bester for several crimes including murder and aiding the latter's prison escape from the Mangaung Penitentiary.
On 7 April 2023, Magudumana and Bester were detained in Arusha, Tanzania, heading towards the border of Kenya, after departing from South Africa, her passport was unstamped. That was one of the factors that led the court to declare her a potential flight risk. This command made sure she stayed in Bizzah Makhate Correctional Centre, Kroonstad women's prison. Instead of requesting bail, Magudumana filed an immediate application contesting her arrest, claiming it was unlawful and she was detained against her will. The court considered Magudumana's false address information in April, as she had given the police an address she had already vacated a month earlier, thus all signs indicated that Magudumana chose to depart the country on her own accord, abandoning her family and business to go with Bester.
Personal life
Originating in Sandton, residing in Hyde Park, Johannesburg, and birth name Nandipha Sekeleni, she was born on 15 September 1989 in Bizana, Eastern Cape. Magudumana was married in 2013 to a fellow medical doctor Mkhuseli Magudumana and they produced 2 children, the couple entered a civil marriage and although they are not together anymore, according to the Home Affairs database, they are still registered as married.
Education
She studied medicine and graduated from Wits University, she holds a Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) in Biomedical Sciences and Bachelor of Surgery (MBChB) and a Bachelor of Medicine.
Career
In 2017, she founded an Optimum Medical Aesthetics Solutions, a surgery that provides affordable cosmetic surgery treatments situated in Morningside, Sandton.
