Leader of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, Julius Malema has said South Africans threatened not to vote him in the general elections coming in 2024 except he chases out Nigerians and other Africans from their country.
The activist, however, has reassured foreigners in South Africa that he will rather lose the election than bow to such a threat.
According to Nigeria Abroad, Malema disclosed this in a video chat shared by Newzroom Afrika on Tuesday.
With his growing fame in the country, Malema, a Member of Parliament, may be eyeing the Presidential seat in the country.
He said, “Someone said to me ‘if you want us to vote for you in 2024 you must abandon this thing of foreigners.’ I’m prepared to go home. I’m fine. I will never take a platform and denounce Africans. I will never do it. If it means votes are going, let them go. I’m prepared to go home. But to take a platform and please the White minority by pointing a finger at other fellow Black brothers, I’m not going to do that. When I see a Nigerian or a Zimbabwean or a Congolese or Ghanaian, I see myself.
“The EFF can do internal research to see how much this thing is hurting the EFF, but I am not prepared to take a platform to say, ‘Foreigners must go home.’ I would rather not be the president of South Africa. I will be the president of my children at home. We will practise Cabinet issues there. I don’ want. You mean I should go and tell these hungry Zimbabweans to leave and when I tell them to leave, I send them where?”
The presence of foreign nationals in South Africa continues to be a heated debate as Nigerians have come under xenophobic attacks several times alongside other Africans residing in the country.
