NDC leader Chishimba Kambwili says he seized the rare opportunity of meeting President Edgar Lungu during Independence Day celebrations to lobby for the reinstatement of meal allowances for university students so that females can stop being used as “sex toys” for survival.

And Kambwili says his party will always participate in events of national character because some things like the liberation struggle was beyond partisan politics.

In an interview, Thursday, Kambwili said he was received very well by cadres and ruling party officials at the Freedom Statue.

“I was received very well, I received a thunderous welcome by PF cadres who shouted ‘Imbwili, Imbwili!’, showing that they welcomed me and the President also was very friendly to me…when the President came to greet me, I told him ‘Mr President, I was just telling your ministers that the issue of meal allowances must be reconsidered and reinstated because children will die from HIV. For them to feed, they are being used as sex toys by unreasonable people’. He said ‘it’s good that you have told the minister of education but you should have also told the Minister of Finance who is in charge of the money’ and I said ‘I am going to speak to him’, and he said ‘since you have told the minister, we will look at it’. And on the way as he was coming [out] he said ‘thank you very much CK for coming, God bless you’ and I think that is the spirit that we must have. But that does not mean that we should compromise, when they have done wrong on governance issues, we will condemn them but for Independence Day, Youth Day, Women’s Day, we should celebrate together,” said Kambwili.

“So you can see that it is opportunities like that, because it is not easy for me to see the President or the ministers in the political environment that has been created where there is hostility and none coming together. So it is at such events where you can meet and even some of these issues can be communicated.”