Just a week after African National Congress Chief Whip Jackson Mthembu urged embattled President Jacob Zuma to step down from the presidency, another ANC top member, Ekurhuleni mayor and party regional chairperson, Mzwandile Masina, on Thursday challenged the President to ‘leave the ANC to us intact’.

“Oliver Reginald Tambo left the ANC intact. Mr President, we ask that you leave the ANC to us intact at a particular point in time,” Masina said an event to remember Tambo, who would have turned 99 on Thursday.

Masina was addressing Zuma, who was part of the event in Wattville, on the East Rand. Ministers of Water and Sanitation, Nomvula Mokonyane, and Local Government, Des van Rooyen, and former Ekurhuleni mayor Mondli Gungubele were in attendance.

Tambo, the ANC’s longest-serving president, died in April 1993, a year before South Africa held its first democratic elections.

Masina asked that party members ensure the organisation stayed intact and that its leaders emulate Tambo’s values. Developments in the party at present were starting to worry the ANC’s younger members, he said.

“If you can’t respect your own leadership, then who will you respect?” he asked.

Masina said members should not raise issues in the media, but internally, and show respect to the party’s leaders.

Last week, the ANC’s parliamentary chief whip Mthembu called for the ANC’s national executive committee to step down.

This followed the party’s loss of support in the August 3 local government elections and the controversy surrounding Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan’s fraud charge.

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Burundi has officially notified the United Nations (UN) of its decision to quit the International Criminal Court (ICC), becoming the second African country behind South Africa to present their withdrawal notice to the UN.

Even though the UN has yet to confirm receipt of the notice sent to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a Burundian official said that the document had been formally submitted.

“An official document announcing Burundi’s move to quit the International Criminal Court was sent to Ban Ki-moon,” Foreign Ministry permanent secretary Joseph Bangurambona said.

Another ministry source said the withdrawal document was dated October 19, a day after President Pierre Nkurunziza signed a decree to that effect. He signed after the parliament okayed a cabinet position to exit the body.

Presidential spokesperson on media, Willy Nyamitwe also hinted on twitter that a government delegation was sent to New York purposefully to serve notice of the withdrawal.

Burundi’s current move adds momentum to mounting African opposition to the Hague-based tribunal. African states have long complained the ICC is biased, prosecuting Africans while ignoring others.

Besides Burundi and South Africa, the Gambia also said withdrew, blaming the court of bias against Africans.

South Africa’s letter informing the UN chief of its decision to withdraw was also dated October 19. They argued that the ICC’s Rome Statutes were at odds with its laws granting leaders diplomatic immunity.

The ICC said in April it would investigate outbreaks of violence in Burundi, which has been mired in a political crisis for more than a year. The United Nations, Western powers and rights groups have criticised the government for the way it has handled the unrest and have accused it of rights abuses. The government denies this.

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South Sudan president Salva Kiir has threatened to dismiss governors who use public resources to pay luxury hotels instead of remaining with their respective constituencies in the states.

Kiir, whose administration is facing financial crisis following fall in global oil prices and the ongoing civil war, also said he will restrict movements of governors and would have to issue permission before a governor makes a trip to the capital, Juba.

“If you want to come to Juba, ask for permission from there (your state). If I permit you, then you come. If I don’t permit you, and you come without being given that green light to come, then you are my problem,” the president said.

Kiir expanded the country’s 10 states to 28 a year ago – a move criticized as violation of the August 2015 peace agreement signed based on the nation’s 10 states, in addition to the economic hardships South Sudan faces.

Meanwhile, Kiir has called on the interim heads of the country’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) to ensure everyone participates in his administration, stressing that the young nation was not necessarily a one party state.

“It’s not necessary that they join our party, but we must work with them together because South Sudan is for all of us. It is not for the SPLM”, he told governors.

The South Sudanese leader was addressing the 28 state governors whom he controversially appointed in 2015, despite signing the compromise peace agreement with the armed opposition faction (SPLM-IO) on the basis of the country’s 10 states.

“And I’m now telling you governors because you’re the ones going to the grass roots,” he said.

The president urged governors to help him cooperate with his deputy Taban Deng Gai to implement the peace deal. It remains unclear as to what prompted the president to call for inclusive governance.

Analysts and observers have, however, argued that the South Sudanese leader wants the country’s state governors to accommodate representatives of the armed opposition movement under the faction allied to his controversially appointed first vice president, Taban Deng Gai and members of the parties sympathetic to policies and activities of the faction of the ruling SPLM under his direct leadership, whether the government partially or completely controls their respective parts of the country.

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