Jacob Zuma says Owning a Dog 'is not African'

South African's president Jacob Zuma

South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma, has declared that having a pet dog is not African and that black south Africans who buy a dog, take for walks and to the veterinarians are copying white culture.

Mr Zuma 70, speaking in a traditional event in KwaZulu-Natal province, described people who love dogs more than humans as ''having a lack of humanity'' Durban newspaper, The Mercury reported.

He adviced black South Africans to stop adopting the habits of other cultures, insisting ''Even if you apply any kind of lotion and straighten your hair you will never be white.''

Mr Zuma is a proud African. He is polygamous. In an August interview he maintained that it was ''not right'' for women to be single, and that having children is ''extra training for a woman.''

He endorsed traditional courts in South Africa because he wanted problems to resolved ''the African way, not the white man's way.''

As expected Zuma's point of view aroused a lot of controversy in South Africa.

Mr Zuma's office in an attempt to downbeat the controversy issued a statement stating that the message of the speech ''was the need to decolonise the African mind post-liberation.'' And ''This is not to say that animals should not be loved or cared for. The message merely emphasised the need not to elevate our love for our animals above our love for other humanbeings.'