{"id":215010,"date":"2020-07-18T05:16:40","date_gmt":"2020-07-18T04:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buzzsouthafrica.com\/?p=215010"},"modified":"2023-01-29T12:27:42","modified_gmt":"2023-01-29T11:27:42","slug":"20-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-cyril-ramaphosa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buzzsouthafrica.com\/20-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-cyril-ramaphosa\/","title":{"rendered":"20 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Cyril Ramaphosa"},"content":{"rendered":"
Cyril Ramaphosa is a South African politician who is best known as the fifth democratically elected president of South Africa. Additionally, he is a businessman, former trade union leader and anti-apartheid activist.<\/strong><\/p>\n With there being concrete evidence of success in whatever he has had his hands in, it was a no brainer that South Africans opted to elect Cyril Ramaphosa as the country’s fifth president. It has even been said that the smart, silver-tongued, and passionate politician was Nelson Mandela’s choice to become South African president many years ago.<\/p>\n Ramaphosa has since gotten the opportunity to serve his people and going by media reports, the rising stock market, government bonds increasing in strength, and the rand reaching its firmest since early 2015 the day after he assumed the presidency, the country looks to be heading back to its glory days. So much has since been written and said about the SA leader but there are a few things about him that may come as a surprise to you.<\/p>\n Cyril Ramaphosa, who was born on 17 November 1952 in Soweto, Johannesburg, is the son of Erdmuth and Samuel Ramaphosa. His father Samuel was a retired policeman who had worked for the apartheid South African government at the time when it was intensifying its policy of racial segregation.<\/p>\n His Venda<\/a> parents raised him alongside his two siblings in Soweto, a township created in the 1930s when the White government of the country started separating Blacks from Whites. As a result, anti-apartheid activities originated in townships like these ones across South Africa, and most black children growing up at the time where involved in such activities.<\/p>\n Ramaphosa first attended Tshilidzi Primary School and then Sekano-Ntoane High School. He ended up matriculating from Mphaphuli High School in Sibasa, Venda, what is modern-day Limpopo, in 1971. While at Mphaphuli, he was elected head of the Student Christian Movement.<\/p>\n Cyril subsequently enrolled to study law at the University of the North (Turfloop) in Limpopo Province. At university, he became involved in student politics by joining both the South African Students Organisation (SASO)<\/a> and the Black People’s Convention (BPC)<\/a>. His activities with these groups led to his arrest and detention in solitary confinement for an eleven-month period in 1974 under the Terrorism Act.<\/p>\n Two years later, he was again arrested and detained for six months at John Vorster Square following the 1976 uprising of students in the Soweto township.<\/p>\n1. Cyril Ramaphosa’s Father was a Policeman<\/strong><\/h2>\n
2. He was Detained in Solitary Confinement for Eleven Months for His Involvement in Student Politics<\/strong><\/h2>\n
3. He Played a Key Role in the Formation of a Mineworkers Union<\/strong><\/h2>\n