President Jacob Zuma told the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) that he felt "victimised" by the way the process of his removal has been handled.

Zuma said the decision to recall him was not supported by any substantive facts and he could not agree with it.

He said this to the top six as they tried to persuade him to resign as the head of state in numerous discussions that took place in the past two weeks.

According to Zuma, he told the ANC leadership he could not agree with the decision calling for his resignation because of a lack of facts.

"I think it is important for me to say this because out there in the narrative it looks like people were saying, Zuma is defying. I have not defied, I have disagreed with a decision taken," said Zuma.

"I disagree with it, I think it is baseless, I think there is no motivation that says to me, it's fine, because in the ANC you need to be convinced with facts even if you don't agree with it. You say, 'No, I can understand,' therefore you take a decision. But this is being done in a manner that I felt I'm being victimised here."

He said that the argument of two centres was not convincing but was an immature way of analysing politics, and therefore he could not agree with it.

"I think it has been a misinterpretation that once a president of the ANC is elected automatically they must become the president of the republic. That's not the way we do things, it is being forced upon me now. Why? If there are reasons or there were reasons at one point, I don't think there would be any problem."

Zuma also added that he was worried about the current leaders of the ANC for their lack of persuasion skills. He said he not could simply resign because they were asking him to, without providing any reasons or facts.

"In persuading, you don't just say we're asking you to resign, you put facts: 'Why do we think you should resign? These are the reasons.' They are not there, I've never been told, so that's my problem."