African National Congress party committee came to an agreement on 13, February 2018 to remove South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma in an event that has gone viral across Africa and the rest of the world
The 75 year old who was a chief spy during the independence struggle, has been in power since 2009, but his term was expected to end on 2019.
Below are some of the facts you may not have known about Zuma as SA’s president
- Better known as Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, he was born on 12th April 1942. Zuma is also fondly known as JZ and also referred to as Msholozi by his clan members.
- He served as SA’s 4th President for the two successive terms after removing Thaboki Mbeki from power on accounts that Mbeki had abused the throne
- He served as SA’s deputy president under Thabo Mbeki between 1999-2005 before he was sacked on another accounts of corruption
- Zuma was elected as ANC leader in 2009 after he led the party into winning the presidential seat.He was later re-elected in 2014
- In December 2005, Zuma was charged with raping a 31-year-old woman at his home in Forest Town, Gauteng
- For his two terms as a president, Zuma has watched corruption take over South Africa’s under his democratic watch. He also promoted abuse of SA’s constitution.This is one of the main reasons why he was sacked
- Zuma announced the death of the founding father Nelson Mandela in December 2013, he was later booed and heckled at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela.
- Zuma is a polygamist who has married six wives with his kids estimated to be 21
- Zuma started the Jacob Zuma Foundation to send children to school and build houses for people living in poverty.
- Jacob Zuma had also a number of top awards including Nelson Mandela Award for Outstanding Leadership from the Medical University of South Africa, awarded in Washington, D.C. (1998)