Mr Edgar Lungu has not always been a bad President. There was a time when Zambians united behind his leadership – from the church to the streets – he was viewed as God’s testimony that leadership comes from above. It is not a secret that PF was at its weakest when President Lungu was elected into power in January 2015. It was a shocking victory and many people were worried about the choice of President Zambians had picked. But we recall that President Chagwa surprised everybody; he started on an impressive note and we could see how the losing candidates chocked with envy.
Mr Lungu started by declaring that he was a transition President; that his time in State House was going to be short, as he had neither a presidential ambition nor a vision of his own. “My responsibility is just to finish the remainder of Mr Sata’s term of office, that’s all. So those who have presidential ambitions can wait for 2016,” he said during his first press conference at State House.
After that, he went to Mfuwe and returned with a piecemeal process of appointing members to his Cabinet. He kept everyone in the party on their toes as he named heads of key government institutions. By the time he was done, Zambia had a female Vice-President, female Chief Justice, female Inspector General of police, Female Anti Corruption Commission boss, female Drug Enforcement Commission director, female Auditor General, not to mention a sound female representation in Cabinet. We all clapped in shame thinking we had underrated a heaven-sent angel. But we clapped too soon.
Today President Lungu’s Cabinet has no single minister from Southern Province, but all the MPs from Chipata district, his region, are Cabinet ministers. Thus Moses Mawere, Vincent Mwale and Victoria Kalima. If we add Dora Siliya and Charles Banda from the same province, we might as well advise the President to be holding Cabinet meetings in Mfuwe which would be closer for the remaining majority of Cabinet ministers who are MPs in the Northern block.
Today all the gains of President Lungu have been erased. We are back to square one, or square zero if you like because we are now buried. Greed has taken centre stage. People in his inner circle are enjoying while those who toiled for the party are suffering in anguish. The President has left the country on autopilot, leaving his advisors to decide who should be fired and who should be appointed to serve in the government.
Because of this authoritarian rule, theft and greed, the whole system has started working against the party in power. They are confused; they can’t believe this is happening. All they are seeing is disobedience in the civil service. They have chased away permanent secretaries and transferred some directors whom they thought were leaking classified information to the public, but it’s getting worse.
Out of panic, they are instructing old men who should be queuing up for their benefits at Pensons Fund like Mr Dickson Chasaya, to threaten civil servants that boma is spying on them. They are claiming that the government is watching every civil servant’s movement using Smart Zambia e-governance technology, and any worker who talks to the media will be caught and dealt with.
Well, bravo Mr Chasaya, but what will you do when you discover that your secret agents, the people in charge of your so-called Smart Zambia are the ones leaking information; telling us how not to be caught by your system? Sir, there is also what is called reverse intelligence. Your spies love Zambia and they also have families, so be careful who you trust.
There is nothing to spy because those who are speaking out are not wearing masks, they want the whole country to know what is going on inside there, and you can’t stop them. In this digital era, information will always hit the public first through social media before your government can take a position.
Can’t you see that the whole system is fighting the party in power? When the President’s spokesperson makes a call to the police chief, quickly the phone recording is in public domain, doing rounds on WhatsApp. When a businessman buys a building for the Head of State in Dubai, the media picks it, when State House officials receive their kickbacks from government contracts, the Financial Intelligence Centre records it.
Everywhere they turn, there is resistance. Their Minister of Foreign Affairs, Honourable Harry Kalaba had to quit with a strongest resignation letter ever heard of – telling the people that he could not continue serving a greedy, corrupt and shameless government. In short a government of thieves who don’t care about the people who voted them in power.
In Cabinet, Honourable Lucky Mulusa couldn’t take it any more. When the President expected him to sit idle and watch irregular decisions being passed, the Minister of National Development and Planning opened fire, refusing to be part of the PF lies. He took to television, telling citizens that government was not being honest on the causes of load-shedding.
In the PF Central Committee, their own chairman for Finance Mr Alexander Chikwanda has turned the gun on his own party, grilling the entire leadership in public. He has no time to write to the President and advising him in private anymore, he wants the whole world to know that the PF is going down with an unprecedented corruption tag and that he does not support the oppression of opposition political parties.
In Parliament, their Roan MP Honourable Chishimba Kambwili is on fire. They have physically slapped him, poured water on him, squeezed his businesses and dragged him to the police; hopping he would be afraid and tone down, but Kambwili has done the opposite. Instead of reconciling with the Head of State, Kambwili is dangling on the President’s ‘powers’, swinging and pulling strings with intent to injure, every time he hears a threat.
In the party, their legal counsel Honourable Tutwa Ngulube, the man who mobilised cadres in Kabwe to raise their hands, legs and pangas in voting to make Edgar Lungu a presidential candidate in 2014, has now become a headache for the party leadership. They know that Tutwa knows too much about the dirty tricks that have kept PF in power, and they have been forced to cease fire and bow down to his demands.
On the grass root, the cadres have risen. Their own attack boys, the thugs who were used to terrorize the opposition during election campaigns have turned into State vigilantes, determined to stop their selfish pay masters at State House from stealing and smuggling natural resources.
Even the vendors among whom the Patriotic Front was famous, have ditched the ruling party and have resorted to riots in protest to bad governance. They can’t wait for 2021 so that they show Honourable Kampyongo who has the real power. And by the way, It’s easy for the PF to accuse UPND of being behind the recent Kanyama riot because they say Hakainde Hichilema has a lot of influence in the township. If that is true (which it is), how did the PF win the parliamentary seat? How did the UPND stronghold vote for PF?
Dear Mr President and your party leadership, what is happening in Zambia has an English word for it. It’s called an uprising, but feel free to call it a revolution or a revolt. This is the beginning of the fall of Chagwa. Listen to us because we mean well. We have our comrades in the PF, just like we have friends in the government, all the way to State House. But we will be bad friends if we stinge them the truth. They can’t hear the noise outside because they drive tinted cars with windows rolled up. It is therefore our responsibility to inform them about the outside temperature, and so we mean no malice when we say, “It’s over!”
Let them swallow what is already in their mouths and start brushing their teeth because we never know who is going in next, and which sjambok they will use. Those who don’t want to listen to us will be found with strips of steak in between their teeth and that will be the beginning of their end!