It may have been Halloween, but a councillor who was sent a skull emoji by mayor Mongameli Bobani took it deadly seriously.
The emoji was sent to economic development political head Marlon Daniels in a mayoral committee WhatsApp group on Thursday, and he believes it was a legitimate threat.
Bobani, meanwhile, said he was just fooling around with an emoji-themed response to Daniels’s message for him to step down.
“I am going to kiss him on Monday. I love him,” Bobani said, when asked to comment.
The emoji expresses figurative death such as dying from extreme laughter, frustration, or affection, according to Emojipedia.
The Whatsapp spat stems from co-operative governance MEC Xolile Nqatha’s intention to intervene in Nelson Mandela Bay.
Nqatha sent a letter to Bobani last weekend, asking him to explain within seven days why the city’s administration was crumbling or Bhisho would intervene.
Bobani, meanwhile, is adamant he never received the letter.
He even wrote a letter to Nqatha, with President Cyril Ramaphosa copied in, saying he had been told about the looming intervention through the media.
But Daniels called Bobani out on what he believes is political skulduggery in the group chat, saying he had received Nqatha’s letter.
In his message, Daniels wrote: “Why are you playing games to the detriment of the [municipality] and its residents?
“You also have the audacity to copy the honourable president in? Why are you hell bent on misleading and deceiving everybody?
“My contacts in the office of the MEC confirmed that you were sent the letter. What’s wrong with you?," Daniels’s message reads.
“The best advice I can give you in the interest of us all including yourself is to step down with immediate effect. One cannot defend someone as comprised as you.”
Bobani then responded with the skull emoji, followed with a message.
“You have signed a petition with the DA. Why don’t you leave the black caucus and sleep with the DA, I’m not going anywhere! Tell your source to make that letter he said he sent to me public,” Bobani wrote.
Asked by Daniels to explain the emoji, Bobani responded with: “Salute.”
Daniels then forwarded the letter from Nqatha to the group chat.
“There is your letter. Read it for the second time,” he wrote.
When contacted, Daniels said with Bobani’s history he had no choice but to see the emoji as a threat.
“My interruption is that I am a dead man. We were not cracking jokes so it was clear he had intended to threaten me,” Daniels said.
He said that at a coalition partners’ meeting recently he had pointed out Bobani's shortcomings.
“Instead of addressing this, Bobani told us ‘People relax. We will never be able to finish the taxpayers’ money. There is more than enough’,” Daniels claimed.
He said most people were left shocked, apart from one person who just giggled.
“Bobani then told us ‘I have not made money yet’. That in itself is enough reason to ask if he is the person to lead the municipality.”
“A person of his calibre is a wrecking ball. He is a sick guy. Look how he is challenging the MEC, basically saying do not come to the city,” Daniels said.
On Friday, Bobani said: “Daniels is my mayoral committee member. We were just joking. It was not a threat. We were just WhatsApping each other and joking.”
On the coalition partners’ meeting, he said: “Daniels is lying. Since he has not been in the newspaper for some time he wants to get back in. But I never said that. Why would I say such a thing?”
Bobani said Daniels recorded such meetings and he should provide The Herald with a copy.
But Daniels said he had not recorded the meeting and lots of people had heard Bobani say it.
Meanwhile, a special council has been scheduled for Monday.
On the agenda is the appointment of executive directors and the motion of no confidence against Bobani.
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