In this audio, Home Affairs Minister Stephen Kampyongo says people should not be shocked when police pounce on a traditional leader because he has been funding unrest and shall be treated as a local terrorist.

Speaking to journalists after seeing off President Edgar Lungu at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport today, Kampyongo said police would go further by not only arresting the youths who are being sent but the master minders as well.

“I want to take this opportunity and out of respect that we have as Zambians for our traditional leaders, and in this case our royal highnesses, but there is one of our traditional leaders who unfortunately is engaged in these clandestine activities and is behind the funding of some of these terrorist activities of destabilizing our public installations. My warning to him is that no one is above the law and my warning to him, out of respect, our advise to him is to stop what he is doing because we are monitoring his activities very closely and the public should not be surprised if they hear us pouncing on one of our traditional leaders who has opted to engage in these wrong activities,” he said.

“But he must also know that those youths he is sponsoring to do wrong doing are not his children and he should be mindful of the consequences that those youths might get to reap from what they are doing. We are going to be aggressive and I mean aggressive because all this that has been happening can only be described as acts of terror and so we are going to treat them as local terrorists and so they should know what it means to fight terrorism.”

Asked to name the traditional leader, Kampyongo said; “Because of respect, this traditional leader knows himself and those that he is dealing with, they know. But he should know that we know what he is doing and like I have said, we shall move in on him. Now we are going to go beyond the actual culprits that are sent to do these activities, we know where they are meeting and we know what they have planned but I am warning them that this time we are ahead of them and we are not going to spare them. Terrorism is fought with all the force that it deserves and that’s how it is going to be, no kid gloves, no arresting and playing around with people, it is going to be aggressive.”

Kampyongo also advised members of the public to avoid alcohol abuse this holiday.

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