United Party for National Development president Hakainde Hichilema says it will be easy for him to become Head of State because President Edgar Lungu has opened the front door through his misconduct.
And HH says there is no reason to bribe MPs to support the impeachment motion because they were decent human beings capable of doing what was right.
Meanwhile, the Lusaka Magistrates’ Court has reserved for Thursday MMD president Nevers Mumba’s bail application hearing.
Speaking to journalists after attending Mumba’s bail hearing in Lusaka, Tuesday, HH said there was no need to attain state power through the back door because President Lungu had left the front door open.
“We are decent people, we have had a lot of opportunities to create trouble, but we don’t want trouble because it is the people at the grassroots who will suffer. There is no need to enter through the back door, Lungu has opened a front door by his own misconduct. It will be easy,” HH said.
“It shows you now that Lungu is not satisfied with damaging the country. Now he wants to damage the country in the region like he did in SADC, he is now damaging it internationally beyond the region. When we said Lungu was a dictator people didn’t believe us. Several times, I said you wait dictators have no two friends, the only friend a dictator has is himself. They will turn on anybody. Didn’t they turn on Kambwili? Kalaba? They have turned on our brother who we have been struggling together, President Mumba. They will turn on anybody including you journalists. So, the lesson to learn is that a dictator is always a dictator.”
He advised PF to desist from trivializing the impeachment motion because it had impactful consequences.
“I want Dora Siliya who calls this motion trivial to know that it’s not trivia.l I want her to argue on the floor of the House that there was no cabinet minister serving from May to August 2016 because they were there, the records are there. I want someone to argue on the floor of the House that article 104 was breached when the petition was submitted. Did Mr Lungu pass on power to the Speaker of the National Assembly, did you see that? The answer is no. So he breached Article 104. He breached article 108 of the Constitution by granting the contract of $1.3 billion to build Lusaka-Ndola dual carriage. Is there no such contract? If it’s there, there is a breach because he swore to protect public assets and resources by acting to them. I’m just repeating in summary what I said in Mwembeshi. So, it is there, the contractor is there,” he said.
“The contract could have costed no more than $400 million, why did it cost an additional $900 million? That is what citizens what to hear on the floor of the House. So now with those fact in place, why should I, as I said in Mwembeshi, why should I take 30 pieces of silver to buy an independent member of parliament who swore to protect the constitution and it’s the creation of the constitution and the constitution has been breached. And the instrument of impeachment is on the constitution.”
And HH said he did not have money to waste on bribing MPs to support the impeachment motion because he used it sparingly.
“Do we have excess money? Why would we start bribing? There is no basis to bribe any decent member of parliament to do the correct thing. We use money sparingly. I can travel myself, but I use money sparingly because I would rather pay for an orphan at school than get on a first class ticket. Somebody who has never earned money doesn’t know how to invoice would like to spend money extravagantly like Mr. Lungu. So, he expects, because he is corrupt, he expects us to be corrupt. This is a mind rot. Because you are corrupt, you think everybody else is corrupt. We are not corrupt. We don’t have to bribe anybody else with even a penny because remember pennies form a pound. Pennies form a Dollar so you protect a penny. We don’t have to bribe anybody. MP must vote out Lungu, impeach him because he committed, not one but several breaches,” said Hichilema who added that Mumba shouldn’t have been arrested for trespassing in the first place.
Meanwhile, the Lusaka Magistrates’ Court reserved ruling on Mumba’s bail application to Thursday.
Mumba’s lawyer argued that since the sentence was so short, he would end up serving all of it before his appeal was heard.