In the wake of Desmond Tutu’s refusal to share a platform with Tony Blair at the Discovery Leadership Summit, Ayanda Kota has refused his invitation to join the BBC debate with Tony Blair on poverty in Johannesburg.

Ayanda Kota is the chairperson of the Unemployed Movement in South Africa and is strongly critical of the ruling ANC.  Kota has spoken out against the presence of Tony Blair in South Africa calling him a war criminal and has publically criticised the BBC and the organisers of the Discovery Leadership Summit for allowing a war criminal a platform, calling it grossly unethical.

Kota has joined the call that has been issued to all South Africans to seize “the opportunity to affect a citizen’s arrest of Blair while he is polluting our already wounded country with his presence”.