Indeed this is the most painful and humiliating defeat that the Patriotic Front has ever suffered since forming government in 2011, and there is so much that one can write about on the outcome of the Roan constituency by-election. But interestingly, we already wrote about this foreseeable future of Chishimba Kambwili when he was fired from government and expelled from the ruling party.

When we published our opinion entitled “Kambwili is a good bad man” in September 2017, many people did not understand what we meant. Actually, some critics argued that there was nothing good about ‘a bitter man’ who can’t keep his mouth shut for a minute. But our observation was that the PF had provoked a beast that was capable of destroying them. Today we wish to remind our readers what is good about this ‘beast’ called Kambwili, no matter how bad he may be.

“It has now become very clear that Chishimba Kambwili is a piece of burning charcoal that has fallen in President Edgar Lungu’s gumboots, and the Head of State doesn’t know how to get rid of it. He can claim that it’s not painful and that he threw it in there deliberately, but judging by his squinting, we can tell that he is feeling the heat.

Anyone who is politically awake in Zambia can attest to the fact that the PF is having nightmares over their expelled member. The (former) Roan member of parliament has turned the heat on the ruling party and it’s just a matter of time before the rest of the country starts seeing sense in the nonsense that Kambwili has been uttering.

We love Kambwili outside government because his aggression is beneficial to the country. He is a perfect opposition figure, and we have a lot of confidence in him as a saviour in the sense that he has the capacity to save Zambia from the PF, although we are very certain that he may not save the country from its leadership crisis.

As for President Lungu, we can only assure him that this burning charcoal called Kambwili will not go off on its own until it does irreparable damage. If he asks those who have herded cattle before, they will tell him that when you are in that predicament, the only solution is to pee in your gumboots. In other words, you have to swallow your pride and face the problem, no matter how humiliating it may be.

This is what we wrote about this man whom the rest of Zambia is only recognizing as a talkative hero today. With all his problems, we insist that Kambwili is good for Zambia’s democracy and citizens should learn to love him just the way he is. It is only in order to congratulate Kambwili for teaching an arrogant political party a bitter lesson in Luanshya.

We know that all those who considered Honourable Kambwili a useless rhetoric are quietly applauding him for shutting the PF up for a moment. Even some PF members, especially the neglected youths, are celebrating their party’s defeat as they believe it will make the ruling party leadership sit up. Of course a fair share of credit has to go to the UPND and other opposition Alliance Partners for joining hands to defeat PF.

But as Kambwili himself put it, the Roan victory is not for him, his NDC candidate, or the UPND; it is a victory for all those Zambians whose hope for change had completely vanished. This is a message to those who can no longer imagine a life without PF, beyond President Lungu; that it is possible. They say, “if it bleeds, then it can die”, and the PF is bleeding profusely from this single defeat in Roan.

We will write more in our next edition about how the President insulted the people or Roan Constituency during campaigns, but for today, we wish to warn State House and the PF secretariat that underrating the message from Roan elections will have huge consequences.

Arrogance doesn’t pay. Never insult a crocodile while your essentials are still dangling above the water. Those who expelled Kambwili did not cover themselves properly before throwing him out on the cold, and now he is back to bite them one by one.

When Prof Nkandu Luo is insulting the students and lecturers; when the President is threatening unpaid civil servants with dismissals for demanding their dues, we watch and wonder if these people are aware that they are insulting the crocodile while their buttocks are still submerged.