NATIONAL Democratic Congress (NDC) ‘acting president’ Joseph Akafumba says his faction will today commence a fresh legal action against expelled Chishimba Kambwili, insisting that he no longer has the authority to lead the party.
In an interview, Tuesday, Akafumba said his faction initially withdraw the legal suit in order to re-strategise.
“We took a case to court where we challenged the proceedings in Luanshya, which have no basis at all and are not supported by any legal constitution. And what Mr Kambwili was saying there, he was speaking from nowhere. All those constitutional provisions that he was quoting do not exist. So whatever came out of that meeting is illegal, it has no effect whatsoever. So we took that matter to court, but then we needed to re-strategise because CK (Chishimba Kambwili) had called me earlier on and a day we were having a press briefing and we had agreed that we were going to meet and discuss as brothers. Talk and see if we can meet half way. So going forward, we told him we were holding a press briefing and he said go on and hold that press briefing. But when we sat with my colleagues, we said we could not let what came out of Luanshya go scot-free. We needed to clear the air. So we proceeded with the press briefing where we cleared the air and those suspensions are null and void. So yesterday (Monday), he should have travelled because we had agreed to meet. Then I got a call from Zambia Daily Mail that because we had proceeded with the press briefing, Chishimba Kambwili had said he does not want to meet you. So we withdrew the matter in the morning but we were disappointed much latter when we knew later on that he had told the Daily Mail that he was not going to have a discussion with us,” said Akafumba.
“So going forward, because of that changed position, we instructed our lawyers that we write a letter of demand which they did and delivered to his home and we have given him 24 hours to respond failure to which we are going back to court. We want this to be resolved by the courts of law. So as we stand now, we have delivered the letter and we want to show that our brothers are not concerned with reconciliation. In the afternoon yesterday, we found the private [secretary] to Kambwili trying to change the constitution at the office of the registrar of societies in an attempt to change the constitution and change the list of office holders. But the people at the registrar of societies tipped us and we sent somebody, Mr [Emmanuel] Malite and we found them. They know that what they did was wrong so they wanted to change the constitution. So you see the types of people we are dealing with? So on that account, we have said if we don’t receive correspondence by today, then by tomorrow we are going to file the writs of summons. This will be resolved by the courts.”