Hakainde Hichilema, are you happy now?
By Osward Bwali
ACCORDING to the grapevine, you met Levy Patrick Mwanawasa and shared your concerns about your businesses. The late third Republican President assured you that since you were Zambian, you did not have to worry about victimisation as long as you were Zambian. Whatever was spoken in privacy between the two of you died with him and the rest remains in your brain. I do not want to speculate about that. But it appears you stabbed Mwanawasa, a fellow Bantu Botatwe, in the back. Only this explains his disappointment and assessment of your character. According to him, you were willing to lie provided doing so resulted in your personal success. And it has become clear to many of us what personal success means to you. It is more cows or more money in your offshore accounts.
Now you and your personal to holder United Party for National Development (UPND) constantly reference Mwanawasa as the only great former President. No Kenneth Kaunda. Of course, it cannot be since he was Harry Mwaanga’s political nemesis. Not Chiluba who brought privatisation and put you in a position to aggrandise yourself through undervaluing our national assets for selfish personal gain. You reference Mwanawasa now only because he is dead and you so much love to gain capital from dead people.
Mwanawasa tried so hard to endear himself to your Tonga political base and came back empty-handed. Not all Bantu Botatwe are equal. The UPND fought and criticised Mwanawasa every day, in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening. He had to seek political solace in useless Nevers Mumba and impotent late Lupando Mwape before he found Rupiah Banda. It is telling that he reconciled with Sata and not you. Because, although you wear white gloves, although you are a church elder of the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Church, your heart, if there is one inside your chest, is the darkest place on earth. In life and in death, you betrayed Mwanawasa. You now shame him in death by insulting his daughter before the whole world. Mwanawasa would have been a good Bantu Botatwe if he supported the UPND. But if a living Mwanawasa could not support cintu cesu, you will make use of him in his death.
Your hatred for Michael Sata was palpable. You could cut through it with a blunt knife. I remember when Zambians were looking up to you to partner with Sata’s PF against the MMD, you wanted to lead the pact. The PF were buoyant and leading across all political indicators. But somehow you had to be the leader of the pact, or it would not go ahead. You asked, “Why can’t I be the pact’s President? Is it because I am Tonga?” Man, you love to flaunt the tribal card! More on this next week. Much later, during the days of your press briefings, a journalist asked why it appeared you were sidelining Nalumango for the likes of Stanley Kakubo for important international assignments. Your tribal answer was, “Why can’t he be assigned the big tasks, is it because of his name?” When an excellent question gets a tribal answer. The question remains, why is Nalumango reduced to chief praise singer, to groveling to you like a scared abandoned puppy?
Much to your great annoyance, Michael Sata overtook you politically. You and your kin would celebrate his loss in 2008 as a runner up more than the winners, the MMD, celebrated their victory. Although Sata was a household name since the UNIP days as a unionist and a politician, his voters were branded tribal who would not vote for better Anderson Mazoka. I will address this popular but false narrative in a later article. But to you, Sata was a cimbwi no plan. His ill-health was mocked, and his death was celebrated by the UPND faithful. Fast-forward, you had to hijack his memorial celebrations from the PF or whatever is left of it. You sent the police to prevent his Catholic congregation to hold a parallel memorial for one of its dead members. You pretty much define heartlessness.
You are the main beneficiary of Mazoka’s death from a mysterious illness. You want to make as much political capital as possible from Mwanawasa’s death. You have hijacked Sata’s death. Edgar Chagwa Lungu is dead, and you badly want to be chief mourner under the guise of state funeral. A humble nobody from Chawama without a kraal to his name. You loathed him with devilish passion. Unlike you, he did not sell national assets to the lowest bidders and thereafter get shares therein to invest in many kraals or Bermuda. He was a loser.
Even children have witnessed how you have tormented Lungu to his death. You refused to acknowledge his presidency. You endangered his life on the road. Imagine if KBF or Sean Tembo did that to you! We all know you’d lock them up in Mukobelo and swallow the key. Your cult followers booed Lungu at your inauguration. You took away his party. You took away his benefits.
You went for his support system. You have taken his former ambassador to Australia and his former press aide. You took away his confidants like Jay Jay Banda. You went for him, his friends, and his family. To you, Lungu was not a brother, a compatriot, a fellow Christian, a human being. He was not just a political opponent. He was an existential threat who was better off dead. You stopped his jogging, his church attendance. It became very dangerous to be Lungu’s friend. You virtually killed him socially. He had to come up with an 007 plan to sneak out of the country to be a health refugee in South Africa. How cruel can you be, Hichilema! Ba church elder!
Probably your intelligence system or confidential opinion polls told you would not secure victory in 2026 due to the Lungu factor. The reputable publication, Africa Confidential, recently exposed your desperate efforts to remove this factor. Money was dished out or promised in this effort. Emissaries were sent with all manner of ill-conceived inducements. You even tried but failed to get the South African government to intervene. Such failed efforts showed Lungu’s integrity and simplicity. Although he was a marked man, he would not trade his integrity or life with an ill-gotten settlement with his tormentor.
Just when pictures of Lungu surfaced looking well and in high spirits, he mysteriously vanishes. You dribbled him and went for his throat. He is no more. You must be the happiest person in the whole world. But one thing is certain. Even a dead Lungu is a much nobler being than you will ever be. He now awaits your crocodile tears or hypocritical speeches.
