Lesufi to sue Dan Roodt for alleging he’s not a South African

The battle between Gauteng education MEC Panyaza Lesufi and Afrikaner author and commentator Dan Roodt has continued, with Lesufi considering legal action against Roodt for ongoing claims about his nationality and patriotism.

The Citizen earlier reported that Roodt had accused Lesufi of “making racist statements about Afrikaans and Afrikaners”.

This came after Lesufi stated on social media that the names of schools such as Hoërskool Hendrik Verwoerd in Tshwane would continue to fall until there were no names reminding South Africans of the past, particularly the apartheid past, but also the colonial one.

Roodt tweeted: “What right does this racist have to remove Verwoerd’s name from anything? Lesufi isn’t even South African!” he alleged in response.

The MEC said Roodt would have to apologise to the nation for tweeting the “baseless accusation” that he was “not a South African”.

In a tweet on Friday, Lesufi said he now had no choice but to go to court regarding the matter.

“This man instead of retracting his baseless accusations that I am not a South African, he is now insulting me and my parents. I’ve no choice now but to go straight to court and make him pay heavily for his insults.”

This man instead of retracting his baseless accusations that I am not not a South African, he is now insulting me and my parents. I’ve no choice now but to go straight to court and make him pay heavily for his insults pic.twitter.com/HHcBd97Kbr

— Panyaza Lesufi (@Lesufi) September 6, 2019

Roodt in a statement posted by Lesufi maintained he was not prepared to remove the message from his Twitter account and an apology was not necessary.

“Due to his dislike for Afrikaans and Afrikaners, I do not find your client to be a patriotic South African. After all, there are many places, animal and plant names in south Africa with Afrikaans names and Afrikaans. As a native form of Dutch, [it] has been spoken in the country for almost 400 years. My statement that Mr Lesufi is not a South African was thus metaphorically intended in the first place to show that his hatred for Afrikaans defines him as alien…” claimed Roodt.

Roodt went on to question where Lesufi was born, what ethnic group he belonged to, and what his other name, Andrek, meant.

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