Lusaka Province Minister Bowman Lusambo has invited UPND vice-president Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba for free extra lessons in politics.

And Lusambo has boasted that PF Mayoral candidate for Lusaka Miles Sampa is the only one fit for the position because he has vast experience and understands the problems at civic centre.

Reacting to UPND vice-president GBM’s remarks against the PF and its Mayoral candidate Miles Sampa last week, Lusambo said it was unfortunate that Mwamba still hadn’t graduated from politics of character assassination even after being given the position vice-president in UPND.

“For honourable GBM, I just want to advise him that let us change the way we do politics in our country. The politics of character assassination are long gone. We want to talk about issue-based politics, and if you come to my party under the leadership of his Excellency President Edgar Chagwa Lungu, who is the Commander- In- Chief of the Armed Forces, he has been encouraging all of us to concentrate on issue-based politics. That’s why we are out there in Kanyama, we are out there in Matero, Munali, Lusaka Central… to talk about development which we will bring to the people of Lusaka and Zambia at large. So ba (Mr) GBM should concentrate on selling their actors and other dramatists who have come on the scene to be considered as Mayors. But I can assure you that the job of a Mayor is not as easy as they think it is. It’s a very important job and we touch millions of people’s lives and we have to give a very serious person to administer the affairs of civic duties,” Lusambo said.

“Politics are not for children and I thought GBM has graduated from a visionless person when he was given this position of vic-president political in UPND. But I am not surprised because we have no politicians in UPND, starting from their chairman Hakainde Hichilema. Hakainde Hichilema is not a politician and the vice-president is not a politician. So for me, I am not surprised. I will invite my uncle Mr GBM so that I begin to teach him politics, I think he has forgotten politics. This is not the time to do the type of ranting that he is doing, this is the time do issue-based politics. So we will invite him to come for extra lessons so that we can nurture him for future endeavours.”

Meanwhile, Lusambo said Sampa was the only eligible candidate for the position of Lusaka Mayor.

“I want to send this message to the people of Lusaka that the best candidate among the nine who applied to be considered as the Mayor for Lusaka is Miles Sampa. Miles Sampa has a track record, he’s not only coming in as an armature. He was Deputy Minister Commerce and Trade, he was Deputy Minster by then for Lusaka Province, He also saved as member of parliament for Matero constituency. Mind you, being MP, it means you are in touch with the the grassroots. Miles was working with councilors in Matero. So he’s a person who has experience for that job. And Mr [Geoffrey] Mwamba’s talk, for me he was just trying to politic the situation. Otherwise, our candidate is the best candidate and he is not a job seeker. We have a plan as government and he (Miles) will be just going in to join the winning team,” said Lusambo.

“The team is already there, we have 32 councilors in the Chamber out of 33 and we are not supposed be rocket scientists to pick the best candidate among the nine. Some of them are just dreamers, like one of the candidates who saying she wants to bring back the street vendors in the streets of Lusaka. But that is a very laughable contribution from that visionless candidate. There is no Mayor in Zambia who can reverse the decision of the minister in charge of Local Government. We want to tell the people of Zambia and Lusaka in particular that they should not waste their time, let them just go and vote wisely by voting for Mayor Miles Sampa. For me as the deputy campaign manager for Mayor Miles Sampa, I am very comfortable because we have already won the elections because we know that our candidate is the best candidate.”