Johannesburg – A man who was stabbed seven times during a community meeting wants the man who stabbed him to face the music with a prison sentence.
He says his only crime was wearing a T-shirt of a political party opposed to the ANC, whose local leaders, including a councillor, chaired the meeting.
Nkosiyethu Gola, 26, of Veeplaas township in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), said he had attended the meeting wearing the political party T-shirt of the Defenders of the People (DOP), a newly launched political party which aims to contest various regions including Johannesburg, Tshwane, Ekurhuleni and Gqeberha during the local government elections this year.
Gola said he sat down quietly at the meeting before he was attacked by someone he can identify. He was stabbed seven times, with most stab wounds on his back.
“No one said anything to me, they just stabbed me. I know the person who stabbed me and he will pay for this, I want him to go to prison for what he has done,” he said speaking to IOL by phone from hospital.
Gola, an unemployed father of two, said he was a former member of the UDM and recently joined the DOP. He said he expected to be discharged from hospital on Friday and would then approach the police to open a case against his attacker.
“It’s still so painful,” he said. “The worst part is that I did not see this coming, I was just sitting and then I was being stabbed on my back. I thought I would die and now I know these people who did this.”
Gola said he had never been attacked before for partaking in politics.
“This makes me sad, I really want the person who did this to me to go to jail,” he said.
DOP spokesperson Tukela Zumani said someone took issue with Gola’s political party T-shirt at the outdoor meeting.
“We have not opened a case because he is still in hospital, we intend to open case once he is released,” he said.
Zumani said the DOP was formed by men and women who decided that they were tired of sitting on the sidelines as the political state deteriorated. He added the party was growing in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo and Gauteng provinces.
IOL