THE police officer who fired live ammunition and killed Nsama Nsama and Joseph Kaunda will never be found, let alone brought to justice. This is because it is not in the best interest of the police command for the trigger happy officer to be identified. If the Inspector General was truly interested in getting the culprit, he would have done it the very next day. Even a civilian can conduct a quick investigation to get to the bottom of this.

It is common knowledge that when a police officer is handed a firearm, the station records the name of that officer and the details including serial number of the gun collected. The same is done when an officer takes ammunition. The number of live bullets collected from the station is recorded, meaning when retiring the firearm, the bullets must be counted to ascertain how many were expended. Any round of ammunition used by a police officer must be accompanied by a lawful explanation.

If our Police Command was really interested to find out if the firearm which killed the two innocent citizens was one of theirs, it would not be such a difficult undertaking. But this investigation, like many others in the past, will die a natural death. In the end, Nsama and Joseph will simply end up in the history books as statistics.

When it comes to misconduct and extra judicial killings, there has been enough talk about “bad apples” in the police service. But the problem is not primarily the quality or character of the police officers themselves. It’s the destruction of the entire system that has been infiltrated by political cadres, killers. This is what Mr Kakoma Kanganja has turned our Police Service into.

Police murderers are going unpunished and this is because they are being protected. At the pace we are going, Mr Kakoma Kanganga is on course to becoming the worst Inspector General of Police Zambia has ever had. A man of no principles or any ethics, a compromised and biased peddler of the PF agenda.

If we recall, the leaked phone recordings of April 2017 between him and the President’s spokesperson then, we can be justified to conclude that Mr Kanganja’s agenda is to do whatever it takes to prolong the Patriotic Front’s rule, even if it means giving unlawful orders to his men and women in uniform.

Mr Kanganga, in pursuit of furthering the PF’s Lungu ”must win at all costs”, has taken the words of late Robert Mugabe to heart. Mugabe once said ” Our votes must go together with our guns. After all, any vote we shall have, shall have been the product of the gun. The gun which produces the vote should remain its security officer-its guarantor. The people’s vote and the people’s guns are always inseparable twins”.

The history of abuse, violence, human rights violations and murder by Zambia Police under Kanganga are unprecedented. Just to name a few, on 2nd April, 2017, Zambia Police shot dead 20-year old Stephen Kalipa at a UPND rally in Kanyama. An investigation was opened and to date, no one has been arrested for the murder. The Police claimed that he died of knife stab wounds at the hands of an unidentified assailant.

UNZA student Vespers Shimunzhila died of excessive use of force by Zambia Police in October 2018. Flight Sergeant Mark Choongwa in the Zambia Air Force, in process of apprehending and arresting him over traffic offences, died in Police custody at Woodlands Police station. There is still the unresolved murder of Mapenzi Chibulo who was shot dead by “unknown assailants in police uniform”.

The Zambia Human Rights Commission annual report of 2017, and all other annual reports before that are testimony of Kanganja’s Zambia Police being in the forefront of murder and human rights abuses. Zambia Police remains the chief violator of the Bills of Rights enshrined in our Constitution.

Again we ask, where is the moral leadership of the Commander-in-Chief of Zambia, Mr Edgar Lungu? Why has he allowed Zambia Police to murder innocent Zambians? Why has he allowed Mr Kanganja’s Zambia Police to violate our human rights? Where is the justification of using live bullets for crowd control? Where are the rubber bullets, what’s the use of water cannons if you can’t use them to disperse crowds? Shame on you Bwana Kanganja!