'Elizabeth was some random dude's wife': Chester Missing pokes fun at PE renaming

Controversial puppet Chester Missing has taken the mickey out of those “confused” by the renaming of Port Elizabeth to Gqeberha.

Over the past few days, many social media users have been up in arms about the renaming of the city and asking how the name change came about.

Sport, arts and culture minister Nathi Mthethwa announced the name change and other name changes that were made in the Eastern Cape.

Uitenhage has been changed to Kariega, King William’s Town to Qonce and the East London Airport will be called King Phalo Airport.

The changes have been published in the government gazette. They also include a number of spelling corrections for existing geographical names, as well as official registrations of new names.

The renaming of Port Elizabeth was proposed by Boy Lamani to the geographical names committee in early 2016. At the time he said Gqeberha — a Xhosa name for Walmer township — was one of the first and oldest Port Elizabeth townships.

In 2019, TimesLIVE reported that the recommendation by the Eastern Cape geographical names committee that Port Elizabeth be renamed Gqeberha caused an uproar among residents, with a petition titled “Keep the name Port Elizabeth” being circulated on social media. At the time, the petition had about 19,000 signatures.

Taking to Twitter, Missing jokingly explained how the renaming of towns come about.

“It's like if we sent Malusi Gigaba to run London and started calling it Norma for 200 years, and when we go 'let's call it London again, because this is ridiculous' people act like we are the crazy ones,” he said.

The puppet also hit back at suggestions that name changes in the Eastern Cape may affect tourism in the province, saying the argument was “moronic”.

“This idea that giving our cities South African names is bad for tourism because the tourists won't be able to say the name is so moronic,” he said.

He added that “experiencing new things is the whole point of tourism” and many visited the country to take in the cultural heritage.