PF deputy secretary general Mumbi Phiri has described UNZALARU general secretary Dr Kelvin Mambwe as an educated idiot because he has failed to use his education to improve the institution which he is a part of.
And Phiri says she does not comment on technical issues because she is only a certificate holder, disclosing that she declined an offer to be honored with a doctorate because she doesn’t “want to live a lie”.
Speaking when she featured on Joy FM’s The Platform programme, Thursday, Phiri lamented that Dr Mambwe called her an idiot, because she is going to vote for President Edgar Lungu in 2021.
“I am going to vote for Edgar Chagwa Lungu again, and he says I am an idiot, do you know that’s biggest challenge we have in this country, we have educated idiots like Kelvin Mambwe who are in an institution, we have Professors and we have himself as a doctor when they are supposed to put their brains together. That University of Zambia is a grant aided institution, grants are given from government but they are supposed to make their own money as an institution. Students pay to that institution, we have students who are on parallel programs who are paying to that institution. They have York farm which is theirs, they have cattle at the University of Zambia, and there is a farm where I live in Waterfalls [area] which they haven’t utilized,” Phiri said.
“I think he is a very educated idiot which is very sad. You have educated people, calling himself a doctor, working at the same institution, he can’t use his brains which he has acquired through education to help the institution which he is part of.”
And Phiri said she is proud of her certificates and wouldn’t want to live a lie by getting an honorary doctorate.
“I am not a technocrat, do you know my qualifications? I have a Cabin attendant certificate, Pre-School teacher certificate, no diploma, no degree you want me to be sounding like a technocrat? And I am very proud of who I am, you go to the parliamentary website, you will find that I don’t like lying. And I have refused to be given a doctorate, I was approached to pay K5,000 so that I can be called Dr Phiri, I said no, that’s not my portion, I am very comfortable being called Mrs Phiri, I don’t want to have titles which don’t match with my capacity of thinking, notice me, I am very proud of being what I am,” said Phiri.
6 Responses
Dr Mambwe said those who eat with Pf and Idiots. You fall in the former madam. He did not call you and idiot.
Mrs Phiri has 48 hrs to explain why PF should not be deregistered by the registrar of Societies for using unpalatable language.
Mumbi Phiri has used the same word that was used by Dr Mambwe but I don’t think the academic will feel insulted. An idiot is a person of low intelligence by definition and Dr Mambwe doesn’t fit here. The ones who qualify to be called idiots are those who are refusing to see that things are not well in this country. Mumbi Phiri should urge her team to focus on bettering the lives of our people instead of dwelling on words uttered by an aggrieved academic.
Mambwe isn’t in the UNZA management as far as I know. He is a union leader, so I don’t see how he can be associated with management decisions to generate funds for the university.
If ever there was a classic example of idiot, Mumbi Phiri is one. She doesnt even realize that she is calling her boss..Lungu an idiot by accepting that honarary Doctorate.
In the 21st century, someone proudly parades her mediocrity. Today, there is room to advance and people with brains do it. unfortunately, the PF has no respect academic and professional excellence and that is why they would rather delay hard earned salaries of people with brains but still give money to men of gods, a profession in which one does not need brains but only the ability to lie. The bible is clear on emoluments and every serious Christian should know that it is a sin withhold a person’s wage.
There is no way people can be expected to sit idle when they are not being paid on time for the goods and services they have delivered and watch while the duty bearers idiotically waste national resources on irrelevant institutions called churches, whose leaders cannot even heal a cold, and shamefully, it is taking an Islamic nation to expand UTH.
Aren’t those kids sleeping at the Church road bridge and Post Office enough indication that things are wrong in Zambia? Some, if not all, it is due to the fact that their parents are camping at government institutions waiting for their benefit, and here is an Idiot who has never seen the inside of lecture hall of higher learning calling a Dr. idiot. It the men of gods with doctorates are so cheap to stoop low to the level of the mubi phiris, it does not mean that every one, especially those with real doctorates will.
Zambia has dignity not because it has men of gods but because it has a University, and those who have been to UNZA will agree with me that despite challenges UNZA still carries the national flag high.