Radio personality and founder of March and March Movement, Jacinta Ngobese-Zuma has explained the reason behind her xenophobic agitations in South Africa against other Africans especially Nigerians. 

The controversial anti-immigration critic, in a circulating video obtained by the Peoples Gazette on Tuesday admitted to being ‘a bitter person’ as perceived by a section of the public.

Ms Ngobese-Zuma is a hardline campaigner against irregular or undocumented immigration.

Recounting a childhood experience, Ms Ngobese-Zuma said her mother discovered during a visit to the South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs (DHA) that she had been married to a Nigerian man whose true identity she barely knew.

“Maybe I am a bitter person, who knows. Because I was 14 years old, living with my mother, when I saw her breaking down, crying tears. Because when she went to Home Affairs she found out that she had been married off to a Nigerian that she didn’t even know,” Ms Ngobese-Zuma noted.

“So, all of us had a problem with our identity. Because our mother basically was using a different surname, and the surname’s from someone that she didn’t even know,” she said.

The anti-immigration critic said an undisclosed incident prompted the DHA to advise her mother to seek a divorce in order to be cleared of a matter involving her Nigerian partner at the time.

Ms Ngobese-Zuma said the implication of such a decision was that her mother’s presumed partner would get half of what belonged to her.  

“They were telling her that the only way to get out of this was to get a divorce. To get a divorce means that this person takes half of everything that she has and she owns. This person that she doesn’t know, she’s never met in her life, who came all the way from Nigeria to steal her identity and pretend that he’s married to her,” she added.

Accusing male immigrants of exploring dishonest steps to exploit economic opportunities, she said foreigners now buy off South Africans for the sake of marriage.

“I guess all the time they realised that stealing or faking marriages don’t work. Now, they started buying off South African women to marry them, which is working quite well for them because of many level of desperation etcetera,” Ms Ngobese-Zuma stated.

“So, maybe, I could be. Still bitter, who knows. Maybe it’s a childhood trauma, who knows. But at the end of the day, it is what’s driving me to make sure that we never have to go through this nonsense again,” she said.

The Gazette gathered that the March and March Movement has been advocating “stronger border control, prioritisation of citizens access to job and services and accountability in immigration policy implementation.”

Earlier, on Wednesday, Ms Ngobese-Zuma led a mass demonstration to the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL), urging the legislators to take decisive action against criminal networks suspected to be linked to undocumented migrants.

She stated at the rally, “Today is a reiteration of the fact that we are tired of illegal immigrants taking over our spaces, overstretching our resources, and rendering us, in our own country, useless.

“We want to make sure that we reiterate to our government and illegal immigrants that the time to play is over. We want our country back, and we are not negotiating on that.”