WATCH | Cash exchanged hands when Ramaphosa won ANC presidency: Zuma

Former president Jacob Zuma says he's concerned about how the use of money influenced the outcome of the ANC's national elective conference in December 2017 at Nasrec.

Zuma — in a conversation with his son Duduzane in “part 2" of their “Zooming with Zumas” show on YouTube — also said the Nasrec conference marked the death of the ANC's ideological strength.

He said Nasrec left him “with scars that will take a long time to heal”.

According to Zuma, going into Nasrec the ANC had two options: to choose upping the tempo on its mission of transforming the country, or going off the rails — and the latter was what happened.

In his version, Zuma said “comrades” auctioned their independence in Nasrec where they were bought with money and were thereby beholden to their sponsors beyond the 2017 conference.

But what “took the cup” for him was when he was asked to step down just two months before the Nasrec conference, without been told why he had to go.

Zuma said he was recalled as head of state “because there was a mood” allowed to gain traction. This is clearly an indirect swipe at the so-called “Ramaphoria,” a popular reference to the country's mood after the election of Cyril Ramaphosa as ANC president at Nasrec.

“Nasrec was an important year of the ANC. It was a point where the ANC could have moved up in terms of its task and in terms of everything.

“There was very clear direction that the membership was taking but unfortunately the issue of money came in, in a manner that had never been seen before. The role played by money meant that the ideological strength of the ANC was seriously battered.

“That in a sense undermined the integrity of the ANC and what it stands for — money moved the ANC cadres to the point that was not about the ideological beliefs but about those who have the money.”

Zuma believes that the Nasrec conference also dealt a blow to what he claims were programmes championed by him, including free tertiary education, land expropriation without compensation and radical economic transformation.

He added that, as he recalled, post-Nasrec was “the first time” the ANC did so to a president “who had done nothing [wrong]".

Asked by Duduzane if his interpretation of the Nasrec outcomes were not sour grapes on his part because his preferred successor, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, was defeated, Zuma said this was not the case.

“The fact that money was the biggest ever seen is a reality, it is not sour grapes,” he said, adding that it was also a fact that the ANC recalled him for no reason after they failed to answer his infamous question of “what have I done?".