When you critically look at the Cabinet Reshuffle that President Edgar Lungu made last week, you can tell that this a troubled man doing his best to serve the country better, but only to the extent that is acceptable to his surroundings. Put simply, we can say his heart is willing to fight corruption, but his body can’t. There is enough background to attest to this.

Shortly after Lusaka Magistrate David Simusamba pronounced Housing and Infrastructure Development Minister Ronald Chitotela innocent and with no corruption case to answer, PF musicians JK, Wile, Kayombo and others jumped into the studio to compose an acquittal song; something we have never heard or seen before.

No offence to the musicians; we now live in hard times where money is money, regardless of how it’s made. Whether one had to stand half-naked on a dark corner waiting for a hormonally-imbalanced patron to drive by and leave some short-time weekend tax, or someone had to bend over and use the other end as a voice outlet to produce a stinky song that praises a corrupt politician; as long as the money is made, what people say doesn’t matter any more. So let’s stop pointing fingers at JK and his band.

The only criticism we have for the “Chitotela Acquittal” hit makers is that they left out the magistrate who made everything possible. On that one, we condemn the band because it’s not fair to praise the President, and the freed minister, leaving other critical members of the party who went to great lengths, making sure that the corruption fight is diligently fought in the judiciary. Anyway, perhaps it was by design. Who knows, maybe the famous magistrate actually produced the song himself, or is featuring somewhere among the backing vocalists.

Whatever the case, the “Acquittal” song set the tone for President Lungu to unveil his next move. When everybody expected that the song would be such an embarrassment to the Head of State and the entire Cabinet, President Lungu says I would rather fire a minister who is fighting Kalusha Bwalya at FAZ, not my anointed best friend.

We are surprised that people are surprised with this appointment because we have said it before that the Great Leader, President Dr Lungu is a very honest man. These recent events have simply proved us right. At a time when he is being asked to fire all accused pompwes, the President takes the most condemned and makes him the face of our tourism industry. Genius! This appointment came from the heart because our President is not the type who will fire his friend just for pretense while quoting him behind closed door.

Considering that all corrupt forces have assembled to bring down the Financial Intelligence Centre, money launderers, terrorists and fraudsters will now see that Zambia is indeed the prime tourist destination where corruption is the other word for “welcome”. Honorable Chitotela is definitely a great advert for our country; if that is the message we are trying to send to the world.

But that said, we understand that our President is under more pressure to govern this country than people actually think he is. Even if he wanted to clean the system of all bad elements, he can’t because these bad elements made him who he is today. A lot of things have happened to keep President Lungu in power and those are the things that can’t allow him to flex his Presidential muscle the way he pleases. This is what we mean when we say the heart is willing but his body is failing.

For example; why is it impossible for the Head of State to get rid of the Pambashe member of parliament? It is because President Lungu and this particular minister are joined from the hip. They are conjoined twins who can’t be separated because they have a past that defines them. If one is removed from the other, the other will go down. They believe that together, they have a higher chance of surviving. These are the circumstances that don’t allow the President to separate from his ‘twin’ brother.

But life has to move on. In every bad situation, there is usually something good. As a matter of fact, we see a silver lining in the Cabinet reshuffle that the President made, and we will dedicate this page to explain why we love Honourable Vincent Mwale and Honourable Brian Mushimba’s appointments tomorrow. Today, we will end by congratulating ivory smugglers who have a jackpot from this reshuffle, while challenging the new Tourism Minister to prove us wrong!