Complaints about the way our country is being governed have continued to pour in from almost all sections of society. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, farmers, pastors, traditional leaders, students; everyone is complaining, not to mention the civil society and political groups. From the look of things, Zambia is under a very dark cloud, save for a privileged few who have the means of flying over it.

Many things that are going on in Zambia don’t just make sense at all. This is the only country in the world where a financial crisis is ‘solved’ by accelerated borrowing and spending, buying the most sophisticated VVIP planes for a President who is only running away from his own shadow. Meanwhile, as the economy plunges to the bedrock of the sea, citizens are ordered to pray for its recovery. As if that is not enough stupidity, when a few faithful pastors heed the call and convene a church meeting to pray for the economy, police break down the doors to arrest them for “unlawful assembly.”

It’s really depressing to think about how we got here. To make matters worse, there is no assuring voice from those charged with the responsibility of governing the people. Close to four years in office, no press conference from the Head of State to respond to the citizens’ concerns. The only time Zambians hear from their President is when he is about to fly above the dark cloud in search of personal prosperity.

Because of such bad governance practices, millions of Zambians have come to hate President Edgar Lungu. They are blaming him for all their life struggles, including the misfortunes, which have nothing to do with national leadership. Indeed, citizens have every reason to be angry with their Head of State when things are not moving well for them, but we urge people not to hate Mr Edgar Lungu as an individual, but the process that made him Head of State. The people of Zambia should hate the game, not the player.

Like we quoted in our editorial comment of February this year, “the danger to Zambia is not Edgar Lungu, but a citizenry capable of entrusting him with the Presidency. It is far easier to undo the follies of a Lungu Presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their Head of State. Our national problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr Lungu who is a mere symptom of what ails Zambia.”

That is why, as a newspaper, we don’t have a problem with Edgar as a person. In fact, we have come to learn that he is a very sociable and generous individual; which is perhaps what has added to our national problems because his generosity has caused him to give away the entire Presidency. Anyway, our point is that Edgar as an individual is serving the purpose for which he was created. We are not a religious publication, but we believe that God creates every situation for very specific reasons, some of which serve as lessons for the victims.

Dear readers, we are living in a world that we created for ourselves. At this stage, it doesn’t matter whether President Lungu and the PF rigged the last elections in order to form government. What really matters is that he is here now and he has brought us lessons. For every bad governance decision that comes out of Cabinet meetings or the police command, citizens must embrace that as a lesson for the future.

In our view, no citizen must wish President Lungu dead, regardless of how disastrous his leadership has been, we must instead wish him good health and consider him a shining example of what bad choices can do to a nation.

It is now an open secret that even those in the Patriotic Front have come to the realization that Mr Lungu has been a bad President. Therefore, if all of us as a country, including those who voted for him, agree that we have a bad leader in State House, we must then turn him into a stepping-stone for better leadership.

They say when life presents to you a lemon, you have the choice to stop crying and make lemonade out of the misfortune. Let’s embrace Mr Lungu as a lemon presented to our nation by the daredevils who voted for an experiment. Now is the time to start making lemonade out of him. Citizens must start now scrutinizing the available leadership alternatives, so that by 2021, every Zambian would have made a better and informed choice.