NDC leader Chishimba Kambwili says President Edgar Lungu and his government have treated him in a manner that shows that they are up to killing him.
In an interview from his hospital bed yesterday, Kambwili expressed shock that a government that refused to regard his medical report could mock him by offering to evacuate him to South Africa.
The PF rebel member of parliament for Roan also told Hot FM Radio that he feared for his life.
Explaining why he turned down an offer to be evacuated to South Africa, Kambwili charged that it was a mockery because the police officers handling his case were under strict instructions not to grant him bond or access to medical treatment even when his condition worsened.
“This evacuation was very suspicious and I fear for my life. The doctor was not consulted and when they came to consult them, after the family had refused, that is when the doctor told them that he had not recommended for any evacuation. But all in all, I thank president [Edgar] Lungu for the gesture of mocking us as a family. It is a mockery that they did. I am convinced beyond reasonable doubt that State had other motives to harm my life. So you don’t treat your friends like this because the Bible says ‘do unto others what you want them to do unto you’,” Kambwili lamented in a frail voice.
“If Lungu puts himself in my shoes, would he be happy to be treated the way I am being treated? Let us for once be factual, and respective of one another. And now, even if I needed special treatment, I don’t think I would ask government to do that. I have been to South Africa for medical treatment many times, even when I was in government. Nobody has bothered not even one day to know who pays my medical bills, I have been paying my medical bills. You know that after elections, after working so hard for him, I fell very sick because mainly I was not eating, I was mainly drinking red bull. And it had a terrible effect on my health. I was in ICU for three weeks in South Africa. President Lungu never even phoned, not even one day. He never even bothered to find out how I found myself in South Africa. Even when I came back, he never even called to find out how I was.”
He said while in police custody, his BP had shoot to 180/135 and sugar levels at 16.
“Its very difficult for me to explaine what happened. From Thursday when I arrived from South Africa, I was briefly detained at Ndola central hospital. I was treated against medical ethics because as I was being arrested, government and the police knew exactly that my PB and my sugar levels were very high. And I was denied medical attention, I was locked up in a room that had no ventilation, where there was no where to sit and I had to stand right in front of a window so that I access air from the window,” Kamwbili narrated.
“In a nutshell, I was treated very badly and we were reliably informed when we were trying to get bond and when we were trying to have access to a doctor, that they were working under very strict instructions from State House not to allow either access to medical or to allow me police bond. So it was shocking that we had this arranged evacuation by the same people that made my condition worse.”
He said it was a mockery to offer help to a person after deliberately injuring him.
“I mean you cannot injure somebody with impunity and ask to clean the wound yourself, it is a mockery. The way I was treated is tantamount to killing me. The government did not care about my health. How could you care about somebody in detention whose BP was 180/135 and sugar levels at 16? Surely, that is tantamount to murder and then the same people say ‘arrange an evacuation’ without consulting us, without consulting the doctor. And I was so shocked this morning when I read in the newspaper saying ‘after consultation with the doctors at CFB’. To the contrary, the doctors at CFB had indicated to them that they were shocked and they have never heard that kind of arrangement where government organizes an evacuation without consulting the doctors who are looking after the patient,” said Kambwili who remains hospitalised at Care for Business Hospital in Lusaka.
“So it is shocking that this one time, he wants to behave that he can arrange an evacuation for me. There are so many people, poor people who were on the waiting list to be evacuated to India and South Africa. So the money that they wanted to spend on me, let them spend on those poor people. As for me, I have got my family and other well wishers who are ready to fund my evacuation but not to be taken under government, by government doctors. That I can never do, am sorry.”