PF Lumezi constituency aspiring candidate Munir Zulu says it is stupidity for anyone in the party to think the youths can’t revolt in the country based on restrictions placed on their freedoms to interact with voters.

And Zulu has warned the party’s Eastern Province administration to stop blocking them from visiting the province to campaign, saying it is their birthright to do so.

But PF Eastern Province chairperson Andrew Lubusha says he has not stopped anyone from campaigning in the province but only requested for orderliness in the manner they are being done as he is also a youth aspiring to become member of parliament.

In a statement, Zulu noted that he is not a migrant and they as youths will not be blocked from fighting for their aspirations.

“Good evening PF kumawa, this stupidity of saying we are here to fight for adoption should never be here nor there. We have never been coming to Eastern province to fight for an adoption; if anything, this is our birth right to come here, time and again to have an interaction with our own people. We are not migrants and we will never be. So those 10…penguins, idiots that think they can deter us from entering our own birth land should know that this is not Chainama Hospital. We have capacity to administer diazepam on yourselves so that you know that Eastern Province is not only our birth land but that of our parents and ancestors. We shall not stop coming here because of you having tribulations with paying your loans at some unnamed banks. We shall not be…blocked from fighting for our own aspirations as young people because we believe in our own ideas and we have got our own aspirations. It is stupidity of the highest order that a 38-year-old young man should think he can limit our movements in this country. It is stupidity not to think that we can’t do a revolt in this country by virtue of one man that is a migrant when we are not,” Zulu said.

“We are not people that call the shots in the northern region, in the northern territory of this country. We have respected traditional norms in this country but we shall not be pushed any further. Eastern Province is not only my home, it is the home for those that gave birth to me and it must be treated as such. Stupidity of the highest order is to call me out as a coward when I do not even owe a single financial institution in this country. Stupidity would be for me to keep quiet when the people are using the President’s name to oppress innocent souls, I will be stupid to keep quiet. Stupidity is for me to subscribe to a school of thought that those that think are accomplished businessmen yet they are conmen can silence our voice of reason. We have come here to offer a solution and not to fight. We believe in the principles of Chairman Mau in his book the art of war, he said, ‘fighting is not good because when you fight, one will get hurt’ and we do not want to injure people.”

He urged the provincial leadership to “take this as the last and timely warning” as the positions they were holding were temporary.

“So to the provincial leadership in Eastern Province, consider this not as a friendly warning but last and timely warning. We are in the position to incapacitate each other…Respect us and we will respect you. We are not children of a lesser God and remember, your positions that you hold, be it provincial chairman, vice chairman, treasurer, are not positions that you can hold in perpetuity, they are temporary positions. We believe in the saying that power belongs to the people and we are the people. You have fought all those that have come to this province spearheading the campaign of President Lungu and the Patriotic Front. We thought our friends were the ones on the wrong side of history but now you are trying to project us as another crop of young leaders that are fighting a genuine cause. We are here to expose your ill will towards the party and the President,” said Zulu.

“We are not children that you are going to blackmail, neither are we children that are going to speak using sponsored charlatans, jezebels and harlots. We shall speak using me, who is a team leader of our team and I take responsibility for whatever happens. The idea of Lumezi and Eastern Province specifically, to be particular Lundazi, Lumezi and Chasefu, I take responsibility. I shall not accept a migrant to come and dictate terms on how I live and how I move. This is a province of my parents’ birth land, that of myself. God bless you, cockroach.”

When contacted for a comment, Lubusha explained that the only reason Zulu was asked to stop campaigning was because he was disturbing campaigns for a local government by-election that was being held in the area.

“I am still a youth and I am aspiring in a certain constituency but you know, there is no way I will undermine a sitting member of parliament just because I am a youth or just because I am aspiring or just because I am a provincial chairman. I think we must follow the constitution to the letter, it is not proper, it is not in order. I will give you a practical example of what transpired for Munir to start saying that. We are here in Lumezi to campaign for our councillor in a by-election where they are voting today (yesterday). So we have been doing rounds then Munir comes at our rally where we are selling a candidate and distributes t-shirts which are saying ‘Vote for Munir Zulu’ and then when the provincial chairlady was addressing people, he asked the people ‘so we have told you a good message from President Edgar Chagwa Lungu, so now we need your confirmation, who are you going to vote for, on Monday, on the 4th,’ and people said that they will vote for Munir Zulu on the 4th as councillor,” Lubusha narrated.

“It was total confusion; people were now saying, ‘look, you know we were selling a candidate, you cannot go with t-shirts with another candidate’s picture and you are dealing with a rural setup’. When people look at Munir, they will go and start looking for Munir Zulu’s face and Munir Zulu’s name. If they don’t find it there, it will be a challenge.”

He added that during a meeting, he asked Zulu and his team to only distribute the t-shirts and conduct their activities in that ward only after the election.

“So at that meeting, the province guided Munir and his group that do no distribute t-shirts which are saying ‘Vote for Munir Zulu’, you start doing that on Tuesday. So we requested everybody who was putting on those t-shirts to remove them and then start putting them on, on Tuesday after the election. So it was only in that ward where there was a by-election but everywhere else, he has been giving t-shirts and even I had a chat with him from 22:00 hours up to 01:00 hours where I was telling him the importance of youth representation in parliament. From that same talk, then the other thing that he told me, he bought seven bags of mealie meal which I never saw and I am told he gave to our camps, then he was asking me to tell people at a rally that Munir has brought food but I can’t do that, we don’t do that at rallies. Any well-wisher can donate but you can’t start announcing at a rally that this one brought seven bags of mealie meal, we don’t do that. We went there to sell our candidate and that candidate was a councillor, period,” said Lubusha.