Renowned Patriotic Front cadre Julius Komaki is leading a group of ruling party youths which has given Secretary General Davies Mwila 48 hours to leave office, threatening to physically hound him out if he resists.

Komaki said he has planned to organise protests against Mwila’s continued stay in office because he has proved to be incompetent and causing divisions in the party.

But the PF Central Provinces youth chairperson Alice Boka says the provincial youth wing stands with Mwila, adding that Komaki had no authority to make such demands.

Komaki charges that instead of consolidating the general membership of the party, Mwila had “shamelessly” continued to hide in tinted vehicles without being accessed by party members.

“Although he can organise the structures to defend him, he is organising them at the 11th hours. It’s too late. What he has demonstrated today is what we wanted him to be doing all this time. If you ask him this simple question that since his inception as the secretary general, when has he ever organised the whole Lusaka Province to give a clear cut direction or the roadmap of the party? The 48 hours ultimatum is finishing on Wednesday and that’s why we have already spoken. We are putting people on site and we are waiting for that day so that we avail the next move. If he cannot resign on moral ground then we will see. There is no individual who is bigger than the party. When you have failed [then] you have failed. There is no way you can pretend. The man is not indispensable because he has failed to organise a small constituency in Chipili,” Komaki told News Diggers in an interview.

“You know when you come with the draconian laws in the party which are not benefiting the general populace of the party, it kills the party. And the major problem is he has been lying to the president. When the president echoed…you are aware when the president in Chipata said ‘I am being misled by the top leadership.’ And this point is justified on two practical examples of the defeat in Sesheke where the president went twice but we encountered a setback. Another one which is more painful why now we are rising like this is where he mislead the president that he went to Roan twice and we lost, without telling the president the truth. So this has angered us to say the man is not competent to be in his executive position. He is bringing divisions in the structures. We encountered this defeat in Roan when he dissolved the Coppebelt division. And those people who are staunch members who have worked for this party since its inception were removed from their positions and those people were very angry.”

Asked where he was getting the authority to talk against the secretary general of the party, Komaki said he was backed by the party constitution.

“Check my archives. There is no one who is indispensable and I am being backed by the PF constitution. I read it vividly because that’s our bible. Ask those who are refusing me to be a member, ask Mwila [that] when he lost in Chipili, who gave him the membership? And ask to say what qualification does one needs to be a member of Patriotic Front? since we don’t have the cards. The SG has failed the president and His Excellency must open his eyes along with those claiming to be supporting him because they are back-stepping him. That is why they are scared that the coming of GBM will open a Pandora box because there are some people who are closer to the boss who were eating with double hands. We still stand by the ultimatum and we have not been shaken. We are in high spirit. We have done it before. Ask them the same question that ‘who were championing the going of Wynter Kabimba or who exposed Wynter Kabimba?’ and I can tell you that Wynter Kabimba was stronger than Mwila,” he added.

“The SG has brought serious functional division in PF worse than what his predecessor Wynter Kabimba did. The SG has divided the party into two camps which is allegedly termed as one, grouped as his own and the other as the president’s group, surely leaving the majority with a sense of no belonging. What kind of the party SG disobeys orders from the president who sees all members equal and important. The party cannot afford to keep such an SG who has outlived his usefulness,” said Komaki.

But Boka in a statement said Komaki had no authority whatsoever to speak on behalf of the party.

“As Patriotic Front youths in Central Province, we wish to declare our undivided support and loyalty to our Party Secretary General, Hon Davies Mwila as the Chief Executive Officer of the ruling Patriotic Front. The named Komaki has no authority whatsoever to speak on behalf of the party for he holds no any position in the party. We know and understand that Komaki is bitter and disgruntled because he was left out of the PF Lusaka Province interim committee that was recently appointed by His Excellency President Edgar Lungu. We have audio recordings of Komaki bitterly complaining and trying desperately to recruit some youths to demonstrate against our hardworking Secretary General on account that he (Komaki) is facing serious economic challenges because he has not personally benefited from the party. By rising against the SG in such a disrespectful and illegal manner, Komaki is in fact undermining our Party President Edgar Lungu who appointed Hon Davies Mwila as party Secretary General.”

In another statement, another PF youth wing leader Daniel Kalembe and Don Mungulube stated that the attacks on Mwila were a waste of time.

“I would like to express our solidarity with the party President His Excellency Edgar Chagwa Lungu who is also the appointing authority for the party Secretary General Mr. Davies Mwila. We further wish to condemn in the strongest terms the heinous public and social media attacks on the SG by a small clique of disgruntled none members of the party structures. We challenge all of you to test your popularity by joining the party structures so that you can qualify to be elected as leaders. What you are doing is a waste of time,” read the joint statement.