DON’T REDUCE ZAMBIA TO A CATTLE RANCH
By Hon Bowman Lusambo
President Hakainde Hichilema spent many hours addressing the nation through a press conference which, when it ended, it should not even have started. The many hours of listening to his deep voice did not amount to the substance or the lack of. President Hichilema spent lots of time ranting and venting on irrelevancies. In whole that mumble jumble, he made serious allegations against my person which I wish to respond to now.
He alleges that as a Die Hard leader, I was too broke to even pay for an economy class ticket. As Member of Parliament for Kabushi, what concerns me is not what the President said in this instance but what he did not say. I wish to inform him that, I, Bowman Chilosha Lusambo started travelling the world long before I entered politics, since he pays a lot of attention to what I do and say, let him go and check the records at Home Affairs, the Passport Office will help on that mission.
Anyone who follows politics in Zambia and the region knows how proud I am over this part of my life story. The same way he is proud of having been a Kachema or a Danker-boy, I am equally proud of having started my politics from ground up. Through the same Die Hard Movement, I was able to run a youth revolution which negotiated for youths to sit at the table of national leadership. My track record in political leadership is impeccable while his is littered with deep holes of untraceable acquisition of wealth. My level of political understanding cannot be compared to President Hichilema’s. If it weren’t for a great soil of the soil Anderson Kambela Mazoka founding the UPND, no one would even have heard about the man.
Listening to President Hichilema, one can easily see that the man harbors deep-seated hatred for me and several other Zambians who do not agree with his style of leadership. Like he said, if he had a way, he would throw all of us in jail without trial for many years. Luckily, Zambia is a modern society that does not function like the Hichilema household. Our criminal justice system prescribes that I am innocent until a competent court of law proves otherwise beyond any reasonable doubt. If we are going to do anything to our justice system is to improve on it and not to take it back to the Stone Age era when people’s right and liberties were taken away with no recourse. President Hichilema will not be allowed to be the jury, the Judge and Executioner because he wants to be the only man with wealth in Zambia.
This is a man who wants to mutilate the constitution just so that he could inflict the same pain he suffers from childhood on others. Granted, he may have had a rough childhood but he shouldn’t be allowed to use victimhood to run State House. He needs to mature into a real leader, a Statesman and not a cry baby we saw today.
I wish to remind him that he should not expect all of us to love him, life has never operated like that. The same way some people don’t like my bald head, others don’t like his thick Afro. If he is looking for love, let him get it from Mutinta. My job and that of my brothers and sisters in the opposition is to offer checks and balances to his administration, he shouldn’t expect praises from us, he already has plenty praise singers for that task. His job is to deliver on the many promises he gave to the Zambian people and we will not allow him to tell us how we can offer those checks and balances.
In conclusion, watching the man today, I saw a man reaching out for help. He is drowning in his own misery. He accuses Hon. Raphael Nakacinda of tribalism and yet he spends 80% of the time making tribal talks with serious hate undertones. To cure his narcissism, President Hichilema needs to look himself in the mirror and ask himself what he sees.
