Alliance for Community Action executive director Laura Miti says if clergymen who are close to President Edgar Lungu want to win back some relevance, they must condemn violence in PF.

In an interview with News Diggers! today, Miti said the attacks on Roan PF member of parliament Chishimba Kambwili during Michael Sata’s memorial was one such issue they could talk about.

“If they are going to be relevant, if the gospel section of the church especially that is so close to the President would like to be relevant, would like to be useful to the country, they need to raise a voice when incidents happen that are a danger to this country. In this case, over the weekend we had an incidence of the violence that happened at the late President Sata’s memorial. The clergy that are close to President Lungu, the violence at Sata’s memorial is the kind of issue that you need to speak out if you are to win back some kind of relevance and respect in the country,” Miti said.

“It is in situations like that, that we expect the church to speak. Not only about the incidence [at the memorial], but the general sense of violence we have in this country and in the ruling party were you will find so much violence. We saw the Copperbelt minister Bowman Lusambo purporting violence, insulting Roan MP Chishimba Kambwili that went viral. So there is a lot of violence within PF and yet there is absolute silence from the clergy that are close to the President.”

She said their silence would make people question their relationship with the Head of State if they couldn’t counsel him.

“So our concern is that we need to hear them, otherwise we will begin to ask questions of what relevancy they are or what that relationship is like that fails to correct the presidency and the ruling party when it goes wrong,” said Miti.

“There are clergymen that are close to the President. Everybody knows. They specially declare that the President is chosen by God. And sometimes we have heard them speak up when they feel that someone has disrespected the President. They speak up against the oppositions but they tend to be very quiet when something has gone wrong within the establishment.”