Jacob Zuma’s blunder corrected
The presidency has corrected President Jacob Zuma’s blunder that Africa is the biggest continent in the world.
In December 2015 during a gala dinner speech,Jacob Zuma claimed that Africa is the biggest and that all continents of the world put together would fit into Africa.
That sparked social media comments from users who ridiculed Zuma which added to his many comical blunders, including readings figures.
Many had called for the president to brush up on his geography.
The presidency has however acknowledged Zuma’s error and sent a statement to correct his claim.
Correction of error about size of continent. https://t.co/yBH0ZcyTkt
— PresidencyZA (@PresidencyZA) January 18, 2016
“On the 9th of December 2015, when addressing a business gala dinner in Sandton, President Jacob Zuma said Africa was the biggest continent on earth.
“Africa is in fact the second biggest continent in terms of population size, and the biggest continent in this regard is Asia. According to the United Nations World Population Prospects 2015, 60% of the world population lives in Asia (4.4 billion), 16% in Africa (1.2 billion), 10% in Europe (737 million), 9% in Latin America and the Caribbean (634 million), and the remaining 5% in North America (358 million) and Oceania (39 million).
“The President regrets the error.”
President Jacob Zuma has bemoaned unfair criticism directed at him for being uneducated, but not all the criticism levelled against him can be regarded as unfair, according to an ANC ally, the SA Communist Party.
On Friday, Zuma spoke of his pain at being treated unfairly by critics who cannot “believe that a man who never went to school is the president and that is the reason why he must be attacked 24/7”.
Zuma said he would spill the beans on these people because he knew who they were.
Instead of celebrating the “miracle” of a man who did not have formal education leading the country, people ridiculed him, he said.
Speaking at the Jacob Zuma Foundation, where he was bidding farewell to 19 students going to study in Nigeria, Zuma said if he listened to his critics he would have “that disease white people call stress but I don’t have it because I know better”.
He said South Africans blamed him for everything.
“If a person loses a shoelace in South Africa, they say it is Zuma and I love it,” he said.
“There are people whose business is to say that ‘we cannot have a man who never went to school running a country. We must rubbish him 24/7’.
“No one has ever said it is a miracle for this man to have become president and written a column about it.”
He further suggested that he was made a “laughing stock” because he came from a poor background and had managed to make something of himself.
“They try to make you feel like you are not capable and make you feel like you don’t know what you are doing and (you are) just useless,” he explained.
“It is even more painful when it comes from those who occupy strategic positions in society… those who are given an opportunity to enlighten society but they do the opposite.