National Democratic Congress (NDC) 2021 Presidential candidate Chishimba Kambwili has insisted that the opposition alliance will walk out of the national political dialogue meeting if any of its members is not allowed to attend.

And Kambwili has asked Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) president Andrew Ntewewe to respect the opinions of those challenging the Constitutional Court judgment in President Edgar Lungu’s edibility case, saying every Zambian has the right to express their thoughts.

In an interview with News Diggers, Kambwili said the newly formed 10-member opposition alliance was speaking the same language and that it would not entertain the humiliation of any of it’s members either by President Lungu or ZCID..

“I am going to attend the national dialogue meetings as a member of NDC. If they don’t allow me, then we will walk out [as opposition alliance] members because we are working in unison. How do you expect a body, you cut off the leg and you expect the whole body to be intact. When you cut off the leg, the whole body is injured and it can’t function. We work and speak one language, so if they eliminate anyone of us… and it’s not just about Chishimba Kambwili, anyone of us, then we will walk out,” Kambwili said.

“That’s why we have decided to be working together so that we do things together. So if you touch anyone of us, you touch all of us, that’s the principle. That’s why we refused for ZCID to be part of the process because we knew that the whole essence of bringing ZCID on board is to try and bring in certain issues that would eliminate others from attending the dialogue meetings. But this dialogue is not only about political parties, it is actually about national issues. So NDC is an independent party and they have a slot for three participants and they have decided to include me. So who is Edgar Lungu and ZCID to refuse me to attend? And why are they scared of Chishimba Kambwili?”

Meanwhile, Kambwili said Ntewewe should stop threatening those challenging the ConCourt ruling in President Lungu’s eligibility case, saying they had the right to challenge it just as those supporting the ruling also had the right to do so.

“Tell Ntewewe that that’s his opinion and he should respect other people’s opinions. If his opinion is that the Court has made a decision and nobody should talk about it, we respect his opinion but let him also respect other people’s opinions to discuss these matters because nobody can tell anybody to stop discussing certain things in Zambia, nobody has that right. We all have the right to express ourselves. The problem with some of these young boys in these NGOs is that they are made to drive a certain agenda and we don’t want to go into details as to what YALI’s agenda has been. The people of Zambia already know who YALI is. So let him leave other people who want to make a comment make a comment, he should not be threatening people with going to jail,” said Kambwili.

Recently, Ntewewe had advised the pioneers of the opposition alliance to stop discussing the ConCourt judgment in President Lungu’s eligibility case, saying they might go to jail if they continued bickering over it.