Pretoria – Despite opposition parties and different organisations expressing their dissent towards the EFF’s planned national shutdown next Monday, party leader Julius Malema has remained defiant, saying the shutdown will continue.
Malema has made it clear that the national shutdown will continue and no one will stop him and his party from protesting against President Cyril Ramaphosa’s leadership of the South African government, rising crime and high unemployment, among some of the rallying calls for the protest.
Here are the four things Malema said to his detractors and citizens about the national shutdown planned to take place on March 20.
1. Encouraging citizens to join the march
Malema posted a video message on the party’s social media accounts calling on everyone who is unemployed, concerned about load shedding, crime, corruption, and gender-based violence, to join the shutdown to show that they are tired.
“Now is the time to take action. The streets are calling, we have to occupy all the streets of South Africa. Wherever you are, make your voice be heard ... Stand up South Africa let’s go and fight. Don’t be cowards, the youth of South Africa you have never been known to be cowards.”
2. Taking a jab at President Cyril Ramaphosa
“Ramaphosa has stuffed a lot of money under his mattresses and sofas, yet our people are sleeping hungry ... The man is not loyal to his oath of office. Enough is enough, we cannot have a president that presides over a collapsed state.”
3. On the DA’s pushback against the shutdown
“Not the DA, not anyone can stop the EFF ... The DA says to black people that any protest that doesn’t involve white people is going to be violent because (they think) black people need puppeting. Someone must come and puppet us, and say, ‘don’t do this don’t do that’.”
4. Describing black people who listen to the DA as colonial clerks
“A white man is a self appointed supervisor of a black skin. Now that a white man is not involved, now that a white man is not approving, there is going to be violence ... it’s because they know that clever blacks, anything that is not white approved, they won’t be associated with it ... they (the DA) were talking to colonial clerks.”
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— Economic Freedom Fighters (@EFFSouthAfrica) March 15, 2023
CIC @Julius_S_Malema addressing the #EFFPresser ahead of the #NationalShutdown
The only difference between what we are doing on the 20th of March and what we did against President Zuma is that it doesn’t involve the white man pic.twitter.com/5yYl574BFq
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