We have 11 official languages as a nation.

However, English continues to be the dominant, if not the only official language.

I am yet to meet anyone who will say he or she was interviewed for a job in any of the other official languages except English.

But as a Black African, I know we all prefer to communicate in our mother tongues.

We express ourselves better and more confidently when we do so.

Even the jokes told in our mother tongues lose their meaning when they are translated into English.

As much as we enjoy our languages, be it Zulu, Xhosa, South or North Sotho, it is scary when we use our mother tongues to foment tribal divisions.

And this is what the first citizen of the country, President Jacob Zuma, has been doing lately.

The president has been under pressure from inside and outside the ANC to step down after the Constitutional Court ruled that he had violated the Constitution by not implementing the remedial suggestions of the public protector over his private home, Nkandla.

The public protector suggested that he pays for non-security features but he refused until the matter was taken to the Constitutional Court by the opposition parties, who fought to force him to pay.

The ruling by the Constitutional Court judges was damning against him, suggesting that that he failed to uphold the Constitution.

He was also found wanting following another public protector report on state of capture.

The report observed that he may have breached the executive ethics code and how there could be possible conflict of interest through his son Duduzane Zuma's business links with the controversial Gupta family.

These are serious findings that in a normal country would have seen Zuma step down as president.

He may remain as the governing party's president but no one can be head of state with such a cloud over their head.

However, Zuma remains popular in his party and has addressed gatherings of supporters to thank them for voting ANC in the August 3 local government elections.

But in his messages at the rallies in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, he painted himself as a victim. He lied to ANC supporters claiming that those questioning his leadership style were not even active ANC members.

He claimed that he was being called a thief but some of his accusers are stealing and he was watching them.

Zuma said he was under attack because white monopoly capital was opposed to South Africa being part of the Brics bloc of countries that are putting together alternative economic strategies for their countries outside of the UK and US.

All of this, Zuma communicates in his mother tongue - Zulu.

His audience in KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga are supporters who understand the language very well. They do not need anyone to translate for them.

In his address, he says nothing about the two reports of the public protector that reveal the wrong-doing on his part.

Imagine him explaining to the supporters in his mother tongue (Zulu) the ruling that was handed down by the Constitutional Court on Nkandla.

He can't do that because he will have to inform them that millions of taxpayers' money was used to renovate his private home, that he refused to pay back the money and that the court had to force him to do so.

Instead, he tells them that he never asked for the renovations.

He manipulates, without flinching, ANC supporters who are desperately looking for jobs or want to further their studies and look up to his government to help them.

Zuma can only divert attention from what the real problems are that he is facing in the rural provinces. He will never go to Gauteng or Western Cape and play the victim.

Zuma has to be honest with himself about the challenges he is facing.

Any self-respecting person would by now have looked himself in the mirror, done an introspection then decided on the right thing to do.

That is all Zuma has to do.