South African Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande’s accusations that former president Jacob Zuma is responsible for the current protests among higher education students solicited a reaction from Zuma on Sunday.
According to Nzimande, some years ago Zuma at the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party’s National Elective Conference, announced that the ANC policy of granting free higher education would be realised during his next term of office.
Had Zuma not make this pledge, there would have been no students protests at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg last week in which a passer-by was shot dead by the police who were trying to disperse the protestors.
Responding to his former minister, Zuma said he found Nzimande’s personal accusations of him shocking because “free higher education is an ANC policy and has to be implemented.”
Speaking from his Nkandla Village home in KwaZulu-Natal, Zuma said: “How do we even explain that a person dies for fighting for what is right because an ANC government is failing to implement that.
“That is why I am asking you to talk to him, not me, because I might use harsh words,” Zuma said.
In fact, Mthokozisi Ntumba, aged 35, who was killed by the South African police in a crossfire, was not a student and was not among the protesters – he was passing near the protesting students on his way home from a clinic, varsity officials said.
Zuma, however, was not phased by this fact of life as he continued to hit on Nzimande’s charges against him.
“Tell him (Nzimande) I said that he must stop being naughty. It’s not a minor thing to seeing students being shot dead, while they are fighting for a good cause,” the former president said.
Last week’s protests were in fact a continuation of demands that began in 2015 for free education.
During that time, classes were suspended at Witwatersrand after students staged a sit-in rejecting the proposed tuition hike of 10.5%.
This was the beginning of the #WitsFeeMustFall protests, Zuma said.
NM/as/APA