WATCH: Magaqa says Malema could not persuade him to leave the ANC

In a newly emerged video of former ANC Youth League (ANCYL) secretary-general Sindiso Magaqa speaking at an ANC meeting before his death, the now slain politician makes it clear he rejected the invitation of joining the EFF, though he had initially considered it.

The video casts doubt on a statement made earlier this month by EFF leader Julius Malema, who – while speaking after his graduation ceremony at Unisa in Pretoria – said Magaqa had been close to joining the EFF and would have done so had he not been killed.

Malema said: “Before [Magaqa] was shot, I had a lot of meetings with him discussing whether he is still interested to pursue the struggle for economic emancipation and which other roles he can play in pursuit of the struggle for economic emancipation.”

Magaqa died at a hospital in Durban after he was shot in a presumed assassination attack on July 13. He was a ward councillor in Umzimkhulu in KwaZulu-Natal at the time.

Malema claimed the 35-year-old had agreed to leave the ANC and apparently told him: “Let me go and speak to my wife [and] my mother, this is done, I’m coming.”

The EFF leader claimed the only thing that had prevented Magaqa, a confidant while Malema had been ANCYL president, from joining the EFF, had been his untimely death.

Based on what Magaqa says in the video, however, he appears to be clear about his allegiance to the ANC.

He opened up to the gathering, saying it was long overdue for him to be addressing ANC members “after all the things that have happened”, which was greeted with laughter and applause. He was referring to his suspension in 2012 from the ANC for bringing the party into disrepute, on charges that had seen Malema and others, including Floyd Shivambu, expelled.

He said: “When the EFF was formed, I knew the process, and I said to myself, comrades, I can’t give you solutions to the problem you are having.”

Magaqa said he couldn’t tell Malema what to do if he should start his own political party.

“I didn’t have an answer. Because he was expelled in the ANC.”

Magaqa then went on to pay tribute to the ANC and acknowledge how it had shaped him over his 18 years of membership.

“Because I believed to the ideas of this movement … and this movement has shaped me … this movement has brought me up to be who I am today … this movement has contributed in my life in a manner that today I am a better person than I was before.”

As a result, he said he had wished the EFF well but decided to stay in the ANC because it was all he knew and wanted to know.

He said “if I didn’t associate myself with this wonderful organisation, maybe today I would be a street kid; maybe today I will be a thug; maybe today I will be a useless person that won’t be remembered when he dies”.

He admitted that he knew remaining in the ANC would not be easy as he was likely to be treated with suspicion and victimised.

“But all those things made me to be stronger.” He said he had learnt from his mistakes.

Magaqa admitted the door had been wide open for him to join the EFF and that there had been a time that he had nearly been “persuaded” to go to the EFF.

“If I wanted to go to the EFF I was not going to hide it … I would have went to the EFF … I would have been in parliament, nicely there, wearing red,” he said, to laughter from the audience.

He added that he knew “I was going to be number two in that organisation [the EFF].”

But his commitment to the ANC had been too strong.

“It was my decision. My decision will never be influenced by anyone; it will be influenced by the principles of the ANC, because I worship the ANC.”

Watch the video below: