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King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo will pay a courtesy visit to former president Jacob Zuma in Nkandla on Saturday.
The visit was initially set for Thursday, but was moved to the weekend, when the king and his delegation were expected to make the trip from the Eastern Cape to KwaZulu-Natal to see Zuma at his home.
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Dalindyebo’s spokesperson, Prince Mthunzi Ngonyama, told City Press that the king wanted to see how the former president was doing, following his recent release from prison on medical parole. He would be going to see his elder, a man he respected as his former commander during the armed struggle in exile.
Ngonyama said:
Dalindyebo famously lambasted Zuma in the past, when he said the former president “flushed kings and his ministers like condoms”, and also called him a liar.
This was at the height of a campaign by sections of the abaThembu nation, who wrote to the former president to remove the certification of recognition for the abaThembu king, because he apparently behaved in a matter that they considered to be unroyal.
READ: The king is a sell-out - brother
This will be the second visit the monarch makes to Zuma, following a meeting in 2014, when Dalindyebo went to apologise to the former president after he had publicly criticised him and blamed him for his legal woes at the time.
Ngonyama said all that was behind the king now, and the monarch wanted to clear things with Zuma, following any exchange of words that might have occurred in the past.
He said the king, even though he did believe that he had been unfairly treated by the Zuma administration, did not hold grudges and wanted peace between himself and the “old man”.
READ: The ‘unifier’: AmaQwathi princess who brought peace between warring Dalindyebo and son
Jacob Zuma Foundation spokesperson Mzwanele Manyi confirmed to City Press that the visit by king Dalindyebo was confirmed.
Asked what the nature of the visit was, Manyi said: “You will have to speak to the king and his people about that. It is they who asked for the meeting. All I know is that the meeting is confirmed and [former] president Zuma will be hosting the king, but I cannot tell you what is on the agenda.”
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