The ANC’s Andile Lungisa has advocated for land to be taken back by force, saying amending the constitution would not yield any results.
Lungisa, a Nelson Mandela Bay councillor, was speaking outside the Durban High Court yesterday while supporting former president Jacob Zuma, who made a brief appearance for his corruption charges.
Lungisa told hundreds of spectators that South Africans needed to be forceful in giving land back to its rightful owners.
“If we think land will be brought back by amending the constitution, we are playing games.
“Land in this country was taken through fighting wars. We need to be forceful in bringing back the land.
“We must take it by force,” Lungisa said.Taking to Twitter just hours before making the controversial statement, Lungisa also took a swipe at ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa, who gave a speech at the Afrikanerbond centenary celebrations in the Cape Winelands, telling its members to back land reform.
Lungisa tweeted: “It is reported by the media that President Ramaphosa addressed the Afrikaner Broederbond 100 yrs and said the constitution won’t be amended on the land question.
“Leaders of our liberation struggle avoided a war it seams (sic) our generation have to go to that war.
“Zemk’InkomoMagwalandini” [an idiom loosely translated as ‘wake up, the cows are being stolen while you are doing nothing’].
Last month, the ANC held a land summit where it called on the government to move forward with the policy of expropriating land without compensation as it believes that the constitution’s Section 25, which deals with property ownership, does not prohibit this.
Ramaphosa has openly spoken out against land grabs.