As the president was about to deliver a key-note address on live television, he couldn’t find his iPad! And then he said..
“I had my iPad. Do you know where they took my iPad to? This is the problem of always handing out your gadgets to other people. It’s always best that I keep all these things with me all the time. I had my iPad. I had it in my hand. It’s gone. I lost it, it seems.” South Africa’s president Cyril Rhamaphosa lamented live on television.
Ramaphosa was in Cape Town on Tuesday for the establishment of the Transnet National Ports Authority as an independent subsidiary of Transnet.
As the audience waited for the keynote speech which was to read from his iPad, the president realized with visible shock that it had simply disappeared.
For a moment on, it seemed petty crime had found a victim in President Rhamaphosa, much to the shock of the public.
Many assumed it had been stolen… And Ramaphosa had to sit down again until a backup copy of his speech was brought.
Some found this funny while others decried what they thought to be the brazenness of a crime that it could happen to the Head of State, the first citizen. Frustration was allover as social media critics took aim at the presidents security detail for not doing enough and how the president’s life was in danger.
The Presidency said, however, that the president was making a joke.
“There was no question of the iPad being missing or stolen. The President was making a light-hearted point while waiting for the iPad to be brought to him – which it was before he began his remarks to media,” Tyrone Seal, chief director of communications in the president’s office, Local media stated on Wednesday.
A few hours later, the Ramaphosa’s iPad was found and back in its owners hands, to his relief, media says.
To watch the video, Follow the link: