Free ‘Rasta King’ Dalindyebo, please Cyril – EFF, Azapo

EFF national chairperson Dali Mpofu today led scores of supporters, traditional leaders and members of the SA Council of Churches in a march calling for the release of jailed AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo.

The march was organised by the Eastern Cape Azapo.

Mpofu said the EFF was joining in the many voices from South African society who want the jailed king freed on presidential pardon, DispatchLIVE reports.

“The EFF has always been clear where it stood on the jailing of King Dalindyebo. We have always understood that it was a political fight between the king and the former president Jacob Zuma, but the non-responsiveness of the current president of the ANC to the many calls by different groupings in the country creates an impression that this is now an ANC agenda,” said Mpofu.

The SA Council of Churches regional president Richard Madolo supported the sentiments of the EFF, saying if the ANC was not part of jailing Dalindyebo, they should at the very least engage lobby groups around the release of the king.

Madolo spoke strongly on the conspiracy to kill the legacy of Dalindyebo’s father, King Sabatha Dalindyebo.

“This is what was done to King Sabatha. We as the council of churches have approached the ANC president, we have also gone to the parliament of the country to say within the legal framework the president must consider to give Dalindyebo a pardon,” said Madolo.

The protesters moved from the city hall to the East London Correctional Centre in West Bank where the king is serving his 12-year sentence after being found guilty on charges of inciting violence and arson. Monday marked his 33rd month behind bars.

Azapo provincial secretary Chris Siwepu said his party was requested by the king not to confine the campaign to the party, but to unite the Xhosa tribes and the people of the Eastern Cape. He said as the country prepares to expropriate land and return it to the kings and the communities, the land of the AbaThembu will have no king to accept their land.

“We are going to continue to intensify the campaign,” said Siwepu.

This is not the first time that calls have been made to free the jailed ruler, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison for kidnapping, assault, arson and defeating the ends of justice. He has now spent 33 months in jail.

A number of his subjects have taken to Twitter to plead for their king’s release:

Some earlier even made a bit of fun of the famously dagga-smoking “Rasta King” after the Constitutional Court ruled that it would be legal for adults to cultivate and smoke cannabis in the privacy of their homes:

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