SAY YOUR GOODBYES
…HH must use campaign period to say bye, Dr Silumbe says
By George Zulu
PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema must use the campaign period to say goodbye to Zambians because he is not coming back, Leadership Movement (LM) presidential candidate Dr Richard Silumbe has said.
And Dr Silumbe has warned Zambians to be careful with Hichilema’s blackmail tactics of planting intimidation to paint his competitors black when he has clearly failed to govern the country.
In an unsolicited interview with The Mast, Dr Silumbe urged Hichilema to say his goodbyes to Zambians now for messing up his five-year rule.
“I want to advise my elder brother Mr Hakainde Hichilema to bid his farewell to Zambians because he is not coming back. He is losing this election,” he said.
Zambians had moved on and were looking at a new person to take over and not Hichilema.
Dr Silumbe wondered why Hichilema was pretending that he was still popular when the situation on the ground was clearly not in his favour.
“I want him to stop massaging his ego. Ifintu naficinja. Abantu nabamukana sanafye [things have changed, people dont want him]. He should work at his mental strength to accept to be a former president in the next 28 days,” he said.
Dr Silumbe urged Zambians to protect their vote if they wanted their dream to come true.
He, however, warned that Hichilema would not accept defeat easily, urging Zambians to unite by insisting on pushing him out through their votes.
“We know him and his message is clear: that he will not die easily. He will not accept to leave but Zambians will have him out. Mr Hichilema will try by all means to hold on to power, but the unity of the people will force him out and he will continue to stay at his Community House,” he said.
He asked Zambians why they would want to maintain a man who had refused to live in State House, an official home for the President.
“Why do you want a president who refused to be a president by refusing to live at state house? I am also sure that he has seen how poor he has made Zambians to be,” he said.
And Dr Silumbe has urged Zambians to reject Hichilema’s blackmail tactics.
“We heard him on over three occasions directing the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) to start buying maize and Zambians felt he was making that directive genuinely when not. If the FRA were to be honest with Zambians, they will tell you that Mr Hichilema was lying and was just playing politics. There’s no money to buy maize. This government is broke. This government is bankrupt. No wonder it cannot buy maize. No wonder it cannot even announce the price,” he said.
Dr Silumbe warned that voting for Hichilema again would ‘kill’ the small-scale farmers.
“Even if moisture content is high, why did FRA fail to announce the price so that farmers are aware of the price? It’s because Mr Hichilema wants to reduce the price and doing so now will work against him ahead of the elections. I will be shocked if Hichilema will announce the price before elections,” he said.
Dr Silumbe urged the farmers to demand the right price now.
He also warned the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) against being used for political reasons at the expense of poor peasant farmers.
“ZNFU is not being honest here. It is being used for political reasons. Why is it that FRA failed to announce the price for maize? Does moisture content stop the announcing of the price? Farmers can wait for moisture to reach the recommendable purchase level while the price is announced. People need to know,” he said.
FRA has said it cannot announce the floor price now because the moisture content is still too high.
