UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema and his NDC counterpart Chishimba Kambwili yesterday defied police and held mammoth rallies in Roan ahead of the upcoming by-election.

And Kambwili says Copperbelt Police Commissioner Charity Katanga is a very foolish woman whom he will sue so that she can prove that he is a criminal.

Meanwhile, Kambwili says he will not respond to President Edgar Lungu’s political adviser Kaizer Zulu’s remarks that he is a mad man but leave it to the people of Zambia to judge.

On Sunday, Kambwili told journalists in Luanshya that police had decided to block NDC’s campaign activities because Vice-President Inonge Wina was in the area.

Kambwili said he would file an injunction to stop the Roan election if police blocked his campaign programmes on Monday.

In an interview yesterday, Kambwili vowed that his scheduled campaign rallies would go ahead despite police not giving a go-ahead.

“They haven’t allowed us but we are going ahead because we will not allow anybody to intimidate us. We are going for the meeting. I have told my people to go and announce because this day was agreed upon by us, the police, ECZ and all the participating political parties. How they can bring in the Vice-President to come and disturb us, we don’t understand, it is all a scheme to try and push us out of the campaign four days before the elections and I am not such a coward! We are going ahead, yesterday we didn’t go ahead with the meeting, we pleaded with them, they didn’t do anything but today we are going ahead. This is an election period, if they want to come and arrest us, let them come and arrest us. We have already seen, Katanga has deployed a lot of police officers but we are peace-loving Zambians and the people of Roan just want to hear our message,” said Kambwili.

By press time, Kambwili and Hichilema were addressing Mpatamatu residents to drum up support for NDC candidate Joseph Chishala.

And Kambwili said Katanga was a foolish woman.

At his Sunday briefing, Kambwili had also charged that Katanga was a mere “street kabova (street thug)” who could not be trusted to carry out her duties fairly.

Kambwili had alleged that Zulu had tampered with ballot papers in Roan and fired seven shots at his house whilst Katanga was shielding him.

But in reacting to Kambwili’s charges, both Zulu and Katanga described Kambwili as a mad man.

Katanga went further to describe Kambwili as a criminal who had taken the law into his own hands.

Kambwili, however, insisted in the interview yesterday that Zulu fired seven gunshots at his house and contrary to Katanga’s submission, he reported the matter to police.

He said Katanga was a foolish woman whom he’d sue if she did not apologize for calling him a criminal.

“That woman must be ashamed of herself. Her behavior is not that of a police commissioner. She is too much of a PF cadre…We went to the police twice, first we went to report the incident of Kaizer having ballot papers and we told the police to accompany us so that we could go and verify…I am sorry to disclose this but the police were ready to accompany us but she gave them instructions not to. We were kept at the police station for three hours just waiting for instructions. The junior officers said they had to wait for instructions and they didn’t take action and we said it appears the police are not interested…they gave us the OB number and we left,” Kambwili said.

“Kaizer Zulu had a fleet of vehicles with beacons, why hasn’t she arrested him? Kaizer Zulu fired seven shots in the air at my house, at my gate, three to four meters away from my house and you can come in the neighborhood, everyone heard the shots. Why is she saying I am mad? Can you lie that someone fired gunshots?”

On Katanga’s statement that there was no record of a report regarding the shooting at the police, Kambwili said the Copperbelt police commissioner was foolish.

“She is foolish! That’s the complaint I put and it is in their OB! She should stop being foolish, it is in their OB, reported by me!” Kambwili said.

“That’s why I am saying she is a cadre. Why protect a suspected criminal and she is calling me a criminal? Have I ever been convicted of any offense? She is a lawyer, she knows what it means to be called a criminal, she owes me an apology to call me a criminal and if she doesn’t apologize, I will take legal action against her so that she can go and prove where I was a criminal.”

And Kambwili warned Katanga not to dare him to expose her “criminality”, further charging that she belonged to the “corrupt syndicate in PF.”

“She is too much of a cadre, even her language, when you hear her speak, Kabova fye mutuntulu wapa (she is just a proper street thug from the) station. And tell her that more cases are coming. She should explain to the country how she has built that big house in Makeni in Lusaka which is far much more below her earnings. Katanga thinks we don’t know her deals, and I know companies that take cement there, companies that contribute building materials, they do it and they come to tell me, so Katanga must not play that [game], we have more information. Let her not dare me, she is part of the criminal syndicate in PF and she should not dare me!” he said.

Meanwhile, Kambwili said he would not respond to Zulu’s remarks that he is a mad man.

“And for Kaizer, I will not answer, for him to call me a mad person, I will leave it to the people of Zambia to attest who is mad between me and Kaizer. How many times has Kaizer fired at people or fired in the air and what action has been taken against him? So Kaizer is above the law but I want to appeal to my sister Katanga that she must learn to be fair. Our vehicle was damaged, she has not arrested Thabo Kawana, and it was done in full view of police. That Andrew they have put in police cells, there is no damage to their vehicles whatsoever,” said Kambwili.

“If I had attacked him, why hasn’t he reported me to the police? If I had attacked Kaizer Zulu as they claim, would I have been spared? And look, Smart Eagles reported that ‘Kambwili is telling lies because he is not in Luanshya, he is with the President in Luapula, so who is telling the truth?”