Shivambu tells AfriForum’s Roets to get help after his Van Riebeeck chat

AfriForum deputy CEO Ernst Roets took to Twitter on Wednesday morning to lay claims to having a power South Africans may have not been aware of – the ability to talk to the dead.

Roets says he spoke to Jan van Riebeeck last night, adding that the Dutch colonial navigator said he would “do bad things to South Africa if expropriation without compensation happens.”

The minority lobbyist and Kill the Boer author was, most likely, trying to be funny. EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu had a different theory though, sharing his view that the tweet showed “psychiatric observation is needed”.

The EFF second-in-command accuses Roets of exhibiting “extreme levels of racism” in his tweet, adding that he believes Van Riebeeck was “a bandit”, a “colonial invader”, a “murderer”, and a “prisoner in the employ of the VOC” (Dutch East India Company).

Shivambu was not the only person who reacted to Roets’ tweet by suggesting that the AfriForum deputy CEO may have mental health issues, while others instead theorised that he has been on drugs, with suggestions ranging from “dagga” to “nyaope” and “crack”.

READ MORE: Barry Roux parody account compares AfriForum to Ku Klux Klan, labels them ‘turds’

It appears that rather than anyone taking Roets’ claims to be a psychic medium seriously, those who reacted negatively to his tweet, including Shivambu, were objecting to his decision to joke about Van Riebeeck, a symbol of colonialism detested by many South Africans.

EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, meanwhile, reacted to the tweet simply by saying: “the KKK is upon us.”

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