(NEWZIMBABWE) Penny Penny claims 'MDC hooligans' disrupt shows

Penny Penny claims 'MDC hooligans' disrupt shows
by Showbiz Reporter
02/05/2010 00:00:00

SHANGAAN disco king Penny Penny claims his tour of Zimbabwe last week was disrupted by MDC youths angered by ANC Youth League president Julius Malema's comments about their party. Yogo Yogo star Penny claims MDC hooligans disrupted his shows and told him to go to "Malema’s country", a report in South Africa's Sunday World newspaper said.

Malema, returning from a visit to Zimbabwe as a guest of Zanu PF, slammed the MDC for operating "air conditioned offices in Sandton" and said the party would "never find friendship in the ANC Youth League".

But his utterances seem to have lit the torch of blue paper jingoes, believed to be MDC members who disrupted Penny Penny’s tour. Penny Penny says he arrived in Checheche, near Zimbabwe's border with Mozambique, with his band to perform.

“But a group of people arrived and blocked the stadium and said ‘this is not Malema’s country. Go and perform in Malema’s country’.

“I asked them why they were doing this because I was an artist and Malema is a politician.

“But they just insisted that I should leave, which I did,” Penny Penny told the Sunday World.

The 1990's star who shot to fame with hits such as Amarumours, Ibola and Shaka Bundu, says he proceeded to Masvingo where he performed to a poor crowd because the man who should have hired a bigger sound system had disappeared into thin air.

“We had to perform using a small sound system and a small group of Shangaans appreciated my music,” he says.

The Limpopo-based musician says that his torture continued in Chiredzi, where he was told to produce his passport.

“I showed them a permit we got from the border but they refused us entry to the venue and demanded that we leave because we were not in Malema’s country,” he said.

“I felt so bad that people can take small things like what Malema said and create a big fuss. How many Zimbabweans cross the border into South Africa every day but we don’t treat them the way they treat us there?” he says.

“I spent almost R45,000 on that tour and I feel bad that people used us to score cheap political goals. I want to believe that those guys were members of the MDC.

“I don’t think Zanu PF would do that because they welcomed Malema there and he never criticised them afterwards."

The exasperated singer says that he was so angry that he thought of taking the law into his own hands.

“I thought of taking my truck and blocking the Beit Bridge so that all these Zimbabweans cannot come to South Africa. How can people be so politically intolerant? They treated us badly."

Penny Penny's claims could not be independently verified.