A social media buzz has chastised UPND president Hakainde Hichilema over a video footage in which the opposition leader is seen bending down and kissing the Limulunga Road tarmac at the point where his motorcade was involved in a confrontation with President Edgar’s motorcade.

Some netizens accused Hichilema of performing an evil ritual.

But UPND Secretary General Steven Katuka has defended the unusual incident, saying Hichilema kissed the road because he viewed it as a memorable place for his treason case.

“How can that be seen as evil? People are not thinking, they are not reasoning. He says that is the point, right now we have a national monument in Chileje where Kaunda lives, if Kaunda goes to visit that is it a ritual? In life you have memorable times and memorable places. That man went in for four months for no apparent reason and that is something that will remain in his mind for the rest of his life as a human being. Whether today he is president or not, he will remember that place for the rest of his life. The man had never been in a police cell all his life, the first time he was arrested from that point,” said Katuka.

“You haven’t seen that the cell in which Mandela was in Robben Island is a national monument? There is nothing wrong and if he becomes president, he should even put a monument there that ‘this is where I was arrested from’ or to say ‘thats the point where the act of a perceived treason took place.’ so it is a memorable place, any normal thinking person can remember such a place. What is a ritual? Those who pray kissing the ground like our muslims colleagues, are those rituals? What ritual is there? Did he put any medicine there? It’s a place he remembers. Who among those who are talking has ever been locked up for four months? Do they even know what the conditions are in a prison cell for four months? That is nonsense!”