By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The EFF has dragged President Cyril Ramaphosa through the mud after one of its leaders, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, was on Monday falsely accused of rape by the newspaper Daily Sun.
According to the article the woman claimed that she was raped at an upmarket penthouse by a man who went by the name of Quinton and who she later discovered was Ndlozi.
Ndlozi, whose middle name is Quinton, denied the allegations and told the paper that it was a case of mistaken identity.
The police have confirmed that the rape case referred to in the article is being investigated, however, Ndlozi is not a suspect in the incident.
SAPS spokesperson Mathapelo Peters said Daily Sun reporter Amos Mananyetso falsely named Ndlozi in the article without getting a comment from the police’s communication division.
In response to the report, the EFF said it was aware that Ramaphosa and “his hunting dogs” were pushing a smear campaign against the party and its leaders.
“We caution the sitting President because we are fully aware that attempts to destroy the integrity of the EFF and its leadership is done to protect Cyril Ramaphosa and his faction which exists to please white people,” reads the statement.
“We are a generation that will not be abused and pushed around by apartheid agents and infiltrators of the liberation cause. We will fight back and we will be victorious.”
The party alleged this was a political campaign gone wrong in the sense that it used the sensitive issue of gender-based violence.
“The crisis of GBV and rape is a huge problem in South Africa and must never be used to fight political battles.”
“The sitting government and the ruling party must caution their hunting dogs to stop using false allegations of GBV and rape to fight narrow political faction battles,” the statement said.
EFF Statement On Nonsensical Allegations Of Rape Against Commissar Mbuyiseni Ndlozi pic.twitter.com/dQH1hMR46q
— Economic Freedom Fighters (@EFFSouthAfrica) April 12, 2021
The party said that it would fully support legal action against the newspaper for “deliberately defaming Ndlozi through illegally acquired documents”.
“The Daily Sun, which is under News24 and Koos Bekker’s stable of racist and establishment media deliberately defamed Commissar Dr Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, knowing very well that not even a withdrawal of the article will lessen the damage to his reputation,” the EFF said in a statement.
The paper found itself with egg on its face after the South African Police Service (SAPS) in Gauteng clarified that while a case of rape is on their desk, Ndlozi was in fact NOT a suspect, as initially claimed in the article.