NDC leader Chishimba Kambwili says no matter what sort of insults PF media director Sunday Chanda throws at him, he will not relent from challenging bad governance and giving the PF sleepless nights.

On Wednesday, Chanda charged that Kambwili was Hakainde Hichilema’s useful idiot who had been promised a position of Prime Minister if UPND formed government.

“We are very much aware that honourable Chishimba Kambwili is a useful idiot for Mr Hakainde Hichilema and that is a fact he can never run away from. Mr Kambwili has always wanted to stand as president and the coalition of opposition political parties has taken the position that they are going to field one candidate in 2021 and that candidate is of course Hakainde Hichilema. This is a rebirth of the UDA and Kambwili has been promised the Prime Minister position from what we know and he cannot deny it,” said Chanda.

“And once again he has gone against his own words. His role in that alliance is to attempt to escort Hakainde Hichilema to State House. Again when we say he is a useful idiot for Mr Hakainde Hichilema he must not take it personal because that is what useful idiots do. Again we want to place it on record that the political alliance by opposition political parties stand on sinking sand and it cannot stand the taste of time. It’s a bubble that is waiting bursting and it doesn’t concern us at all.”

But Kambwili, in an interview, said Chanda survived on insulting political opponent.

“Don’t worry about the insults from the young man Sunday Chanda. I will not waste my time to answer to Sunday Chanda because you and I, and every Zambian knows that Sunday Chanda has to issue a statement in order for him to survive. I don’t issue statements to survive, I am economically independent. I can survive without politics [but] Sunday Chanda cannot survive without being a bootlicker for President Edgar Lungu and the PF. So I will not waste my time to argue with Sunday Chanda because when you argue with a fool, people may not notice the difference,” Kambwili said.

“I think he is very much below my political status and to argue with a person who is very below my political status will be cheapening myself. But I can just thank him for the insults and tell him that I have announced that these politics of Prime Minister [or] Minister, I have passed those positions. I have announced before that in the 2021 elections, I am competing at the level of President. So let him continue day dreaming and hallucinating because that is his level in politics.”

He said PF was sending Chanda insult him because the ruling party was feeling the pressure.

“I speak on behalf of the people of Zambia and I speak things as they are. And when people respond it means they are feeling the heat because if you are not feeling the heat you cannot respond to a lunatic or to a useful idiot. But when you respond to a useful idiot then the useful idiot will be giving you sleepless nights. I should thank him for calling me a useful idiot but time will tell,” he said.

“If Chanda doesn’t insult me he will not be paid. He will be rendered useless but let him know that all the insults that he has been insulting me and other political leaders are being taken note of and one day he will answer for those insults. He did the same when he insulted Mr Sata day in day out. He had that NGO, that boy is specialised in insults. That’s his speciality. It appears he has continued on the same trajectory. But for us all we are doing now is to take note of the insults. All the newspapers where his insults come out, all the records on social media we are just taking note and filing them and then very soon they will be used against him.”

Kambwili said he blames Chanda’s mother and father for bad parenting.

“Me I take it lightly and just laugh at him because that’s the nature of the boy. That’s how his parents raised him, they were teaching him how to insult elders. I can’t blame him [but] I only blame his parents for not nurturing him well. But Sunday Chanda comes from fools because if he came from sensible people, they would have told him that insulting elderly people was bad. And the people he works for are also fools because if they were not fools, they would have stopped him from uttering these insults and to be civil in his language. You can even see, if you read what the daily nation have written today, you would tell that they are tired of his insults. They have removed the insults of the ‘useful idiot,” said Kambwili.