Holomisa says Zuma is taking aim at Cyril with his kettie

The former president apparently has a bit of an eagle eye when it comes to using his homemade slingshot.


A tweet featuring pictures of former president Jacob Zuma using a slingshot (a “kettie” in Afrikaans) has generated some hilarious reaction, none more so than UDM leader Bantu Holomisa commenting that Zuma is preparing to “snipe a buffalo”, a reference to Zuma’s successor, Cyril Ramaphosa.

The pictures show a relaxed Zuma in a tracksuit loading and firing his kettie. According to articles about Zuma, he is an adept marksman with his slingshot, which presumably goes back to his days as a herder in the KwaZulu-Natal hills of Nkandla.

He was also known to be an accomplished and tactically astute stickfighter, despite being shorter than many other boys.

Another photo shows Zuma with his slingshot greeting a woman on her knees in front of him in a village.

Many local boys learn how to make ketties from a young age, using a tree branch with the appropriate ‘Y’ shape, a little bit of leather and two kinds of rubber, most often sourced from car inner tubes.

It’s unclear when the picture was taken, though a news report from 2010 said that while Zuma spent Christmas at his homestead in Nkandla, he relaxed by, among other things, shooting birds using a slingshot, drinking umqombothi (traditional beer) and taking part in his traditional chess tournament.

Presumably, Zuma often likes to shoot birds in this way as a pastime.

He is due to appear in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Durban on Friday to continue being prosecuted on 16 charges, including corruption, money laundering and racketeering.

Last month, some of his supporters announced that they are trying to launch a breakaway party from the ANC and want Zuma to lead it. He has, however, distanced himself from the idea.

Among the many comments Holomisa generated, most people were still poking fun at him for having mauled a quote about giving a man a fish or teaching him to fish on eNCA last month while he was anchoring a show.

He may never live it down, even though the news channel admitted they’d made a mistake with the teleprompter by not leaving spaces between individual words.

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