The EFF student command (SC) has taken a swipe at party leader Julius Malema, who suggested they were useless during a press conference on Thursday.

In a strongly worded statement, they alleged there was a move, seemingly championed by Malema, to disband them at the party's national people's assembly (NPA) next month.

Malema fell just short of saying the SC may be done away with during the conference from December 13-16 at Nasrec Expo Centre.

But he may not get his way without a challenge - if the student command's statement is anything to go by.

On Thursday Malema said about the SC: "Leaders of the EFF coerced us into forming a student command prematurely. Now we are sitting with an animal called the student command which cannot do anything without the mother body.

"They have less than 15% of branches across campuses and they are waiting for the mother body to launch branches. If they cannot launch branches, then what is the point of the student command?"

The students said any attempt to dissolve the wing had nothing to do with their competency but was motivated by sinister reasons. 

They said in the statement they were under attack because they did not subscribe to "blind following". 

EFF SC national spokesman Xola Mehlomakhulu said: "We have an intelligent, informed, politically active and educated membership. That is what allows us to correctly carry out the aspirations of the dejected masses.

"We have received the confidence of students nationally and we have established a revolutionary machine that is responsible for organising workers under the banner of ending labour brokering."

A quote in the statement, chosen in a tweet in which Malema was tagged, said:  "We will never allow the erasure of fighters like Khanya Cekeshe, nor sit back as people spit on the grave of Mlungisi Madonsela and Kensani Maseko by calling the entire movement useless." 

Madonsela and Maseko are former leaders of the EFF SC who died. The former was shot dead earlier this year during a protest at the Durban University of Technology while the latter, who studied at Rhodes University, committed suicide last year.

Malema had also alleged that the EFF SC members were being bankrolled by some leaders of the mother body ahead of the NPA.

The EFF SC said they will go to the NPA to fight for their continued existence and were "confident  we will come out as strong as we have come in".