Africa-Press – Zambia. WHY should we always be reminded about where we come from, it’s not necessary, says Citizens First leader Harry Kalaba. He says State House itself needs to be configured right “so that the President is guided because the way he is coming out, he is coming out to be very tribal”. Featuring on KBN TV’s The Breakfast Show on Wednesday, Kalaba said Zambians put confidence in him to take the country forward.
“I’m encouraging the President using this platform, let him heal the divide. That is why he got votes from Southern Province, that is why he got voted from the Northern Province, from Eastern Province, from North-Western Province. It’s because Zambians saw a leader in him and they said at a time such as this, we submit our confidence in you. We deposit our confidence in you but no, he wants to continue taking us back to a very bad past which we do not want to go to,” he said. “Why should we always be reminded about where we come from? It’s not necessary. He is my President; he is your President regardless of where I come from. Zambians chose him and they had their own reasons why they chose him. So he should not be telling us that people were happy because she is coming from a particular region or I’m coming from a particular region. From a president? Dr Kaunda would never allow that.”
Kalaba said there is need to have people who will guide President Hichilema as he is coming out “very tribal”. He said President Hichilema is instead “the one promoting tribal politics”.
“That is why you know State House itself needs to be configured right. There was a guy called Amos Chanda who was the presidential aide. That guy was about the best thing that was happening around the former president [Edgar Lungu] and the PF. He would even pass notes when he sees his boss going off guard. He would pass a note quickly and say I think let’s divert from that topic. He would guide,” Kalaba said. “We need that kind of leadership within State House so that the President is guided because the way he is coming out, he is coming out to be very tribal. And on the other hand he sees others to be ones promoting tribal politics and yet his cheap talk is what is promoting tribal politics. The President should desist from that. I told the President and that was the last time he even called me, on a conversation I had with him where the President was trying to say ‘you think you have got this leadership thing on you, you have got a chip of leadership under your shoulder’. You can go and pick out conversation from ZICTA…’”
He said President Hichilema called him and “we discussed for more than one hour where he says ‘you feel because you are coming from the northern region you feel you have got a chip of leadership on your shoulders’”.
“Himself telling me that and I told the President, Sir, you are a president don’t talk like that. Don’t, sir, because the moment you talk to me a private citizen in that fashion you are making me feel isolated. Yours is to unite us. Yours is to bring us together. But he doesn’t learn, he goes ranting and talking about those things like a broken…,” Kalaba said. “How can you promote hate speech in some regions after you are already President? Over a period of being in power for almost three years and you are still talking about the past, which is not going to unite us, which is just going to divide us. How do you behave like that honestly? How do you behave like that? Instead of him focusing on substantial issues that whole four hours (press conference) he spent yapping and rapping and whatever he was saying he kept talking about the former ruling party. The President should have addressed himself to the escalating prices of mealie meal. He should have addressed himself on how government wants to deal with the issues of Mopani, [how] government was going to deal with issues of the rising cost of living. How they will deal with mealie meal prices. He didn’t do that. He spent time talking and hearing himself and praising himself.” Kalaba said there is a problem between President Hichilema and his deputy Mutale Nalumango that needs to be addressed.
“When Collin Barry (former ZAF commander) was fired, Vice-President Nalumango called Barry and sympathised with him and it means that she is not agreeing with you as appointing authority. She is not agreeing with you. When a president refuses to explain in detail, that question you asked and instead chooses to humiliate his own Vice-President to defend herself, it shows you that there is a problem. The President and the Vice-President there is a problem. When the President starts to mistrust the Vice-President and wanting to hear what the Vice-President is saying, wanting to say or can I listen in what she is saying, can I know the movements of the Vice-President, then you know there is a problem. So clearly, that question you asked was very founded. There is a big problem between the President and the Vice-President and this is because the Vice-President has been neglected,” said Kalaba. “She has been thrown in the dustbin of politics. One of the conditions Joe Biden gave Barack Obama when he was being appointed as vice-president was that ‘I’m asking you to do two things for me if I’m to agree to be your vice-president’. He said one, ‘every week you and I will be having lunch together. Every week find a day you and I will be discussing national issues. The second issue that I would want you to help me with if I’m going to be your vice-president is that whenever you are making critical decisions you will consult me as well’ and Obama agreed. And that is how Joe Biden agreed to be his vice-president because he understood that if the president does not look at you as a vice-president, if the president does not delegate functions to you, then you are in trouble. But what did the President do? He gave a very careless answer, very tribal. He said ‘maybe some regions would have wanted her to be president and they were not happy that another person from another region’. I held my head. I was so ashamed to hear a president speak in that manner and act so cheap; so low like he was behaving himself there. That was so low for him. He won the election, he is President now. He must understand that what he was promoting in that press briefing of his was hate speech against some regions.”
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