From thuma mina to thuma tina, Ramaphosa promises to serve people

President Cyril Ramaphosa has pledged to serve and work closely with the people to achieve a “South Africa that everybody wants and deserves”.

“Having taken the oath of office I am saying yes, South Africa Thuma Mina, and I pledge here today that I will serve you, I will work with you, side by side, to build the South Africa that we all want and deserve,” he said.

In his inaugural address as South Africa’s fifth head of State at Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria today, the President praised the South African voters for having chosen men and women to serve them in Parliament in the recent election. Ramaphosa became president after his party, the ANC achieved 57.7 percent in the polls held on 8 May 2019.

“It is you, the people of South Africa, who have spoken. With your votes, you have placed your confidence and your trust in the men and women who now sit in our sixth democratic Parliament. These 490 men and women whom you have sent to Parliament seem to have heard the same call that the Lord made to Isaiah when He said: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”

Reiterating his previous message he crafted at the beginning of his period to finish former President Jacob Zuma’s last year after he was recalled, Ramaphosa said the parliamentarians recently elected have acknowledged the recognition from the voters.

“They have now said, send us. They have said Thuma Thina. You have chosen them to safeguard your rights, to improve your lives and to build a country that is united, strong and truly free. You, the people of South Africa, have sent them, and you have sent me, as your President,” he said.

Ramaphosa’s reign is associated with “the New Dawn”, a term he also coined as a promise to end corruption while working to unite the nation and his own party.

“A new era has dawned in our country. A brighter day is rising upon South Africa and upon our beloved continent, Africa,” he said.

He described his inauguration day as a day that “our nation enters a new era of hope and renewal” and invited everybody to recall and celebrate that Africa was the birthplace of humanity.

Humanity has achieved a great deal over the intervening millennia and all by virtue of talents which evolved in Africa. Africa was poised once again to rise, to assume its place among the free and equal nations of the world.

He urged all to use the innovative talent that originated in Africa to embrace and use the fourth Industrial Revolution to develop the continent and create jobs for the youth and empower the women of our continent.

“Africa is poised to realise the vision of Pixley ka Isaka Seme more than a century ago, when he said: ‘The brighter day is rising upon Africa. Already I seem to see her chains dissolved, her desert plains red with harvest, her Abyssinia and her Zululand the seats of science and religion, reflecting the glory of the rising sun from the spires of their churches and universities…” Ramaphosa said.

“It is to this brighter day that we now turn our eyes, to a vista rich with the hues of hope and promise,” he added.

– ericn@citizen.co.za

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