President Jacob Zuma said he was not nervous about the EFF’s threat to disrupt his state-of-the-nation address this week, The Star reported on Monday.

“Parliament acts according to a set of rules. I have never been nervous in my life,” he was quoted as saying in Pretoria on Sunday.

Zuma accused the Economic Freedom Fighters of using the controversy over spending at his Nkandla home for cheap politicking.

“I think there is something fishy with the way this matter is being dealt with. I think people are using the matter of Nkandla for political reasons because the facts are there … The facts are clear, people don’t deal with the facts, they deal with Zuma. Should I worry about the EFF? I don’t worry about the EFF.”

The EFF has vowed to disrupt Zuma’s state-of-the-nation address on Thursday unless a special sitting of the National Assembly is scheduled before then for him to answer questions about the upgrades to his Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal, home.

Speaker Baleka Mbete has since announced that Zuma will answer questions in the National Assembly in March.

Most recently, the EFF threatened to appear naked in the National Assembly if its members are barred from wearing red overalls, gumboots and maids’ uniforms. This followed efforts by Parliament to tighten the rules governing MPs’ dress code. It was however unlikely that these rules would be finalised before Thursday. SAPA