Africa-Press – South-Africa. A man charged the stage where President Cyril Ramaphosa and some of the ANC’s national working committee (NWC) members were engaging the party’s structures in the North West on Saturday.
The NWC engagements with the regional and branch structures were meant to start at 09:30 at the Mmabatho Civic Centre, however a very low turnout caused severe delays to the start of the program.
Chaotic scenes marred the engagement on Saturday with the presidential protection services having to rush in to save the day and protect the president.
The drama started with the party’s national, provincial, and regional leadership attempting to have more people attend the event. At the same time, some removed the chairs in the sizeable auditorium to prevent too many empty seats.
After a three-hour delay Ramaphosa accompanied by NWC members Barbara Creecy and Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams arrived and the event got underway.
But as soon as the attendees concluded singing the national anthem, a man, who News24 has learnt was not accredited to be part of the meeting, ran into the civic center managing to evade the presidential protection unit that was stationed there.
After making his way into the building he ran into a second set of doors that led to the auditorium where more security and party members were stationed.
Having made his way past two security points the man who was wearing a hat and dressed in all black headed straight towards the stage in full speed.
Shouts of “catch that man” could be heard as the president’s security detail quickly moved in to catch the man.
The commotion had several attendees jumping up from their seats to catch a glimpse of what was happening.
The man was tackled to the ground not far from the stage, by the presidential security detail. He was stopped in his tracks before he could make it up the stairs, a few metres away from the president. The rest of Ramaphosa’s security detail ran straight to the president to shield him.
The man was quickly whisked away, with the media being prevented from getting access to him.
ANC North West Provincial chairperson Nono Maloyi who was on stage at the time, dismissed the drama saying “We apologised, the man was not mentally stable.”
But when the proceedings finally got underway, the unruliness persisted.
Creecy, the moderator of the discussions, had her hands full trying to constantly intervene and asking regional members to stop booing their rivals and those they disagreed with.
The ANC’s national working committee is made up of the party’s top seven officials and 20 of its national executive committee (NEC) members.
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