Africa-Press – Zambia. Hakainde Hichilema has reduced the presidency to a theatre of pity, grievance, and tribal victimhood. Instead of national leadership, the country is fed a constant monologue about how Zambians supposedly hate him because of where he was born. This tired chorus has become the predictable response of a head of state who no longer understands the people he governs.
It is disturbing, to say the least, that a man who received 2.8 million lovely votes four years and three months ago now sees hatred everywhere from the same people and regions that voted for him. Wherever there’s criticism, Mr Hichilema sees hatred. To Mr Hichilema, accountability is hatred. To him, civic objection is hatred. Every legitimate disagreement with him is conveniently recast as hostility against his tribe. To disagree with him is to disagree with his entire tribe, region. This is not leadership. It is gaslighting, emotional manipulation of the highest order.
When a president begins to narrate governance challenges through the lens of personal victimhood, it signals a dangerous departure from democratic responsibility. Leaders are expected to extinguish divisions, not ignite them with careless and reckless statements. Yet Mr Hichilema has done precisely that. He has introduced tribal and regional undertones never seen before in this country, deepening tribal and regional suspicions and suffocating national unity.
The truth that many fear to confront is simple: Mr Hichilema has proved to be one of the most tribal-minded President Zambia has ever produced. His governance record tells the full story. Senior government posts, parastatal boards, contract allocations, diplomatic missions, and even middle – and lower-level appointments have been heavily tilted towards his own tribe and region. From chief executive officers to cleaners, familiar surnames dominate as if a coordinated ethnic takeover of state institutions has been quietly unfolding. This is not a perception. It is a lived reality that Zambians observe daily. Just a random check at CEEC, Lusaka City Council, ZESCO, and UTH reveals mind-blowing and shocking evidence. This is ignoring the police and other key state institutions.
What makes this more offensive is the hypocrisy. The same man who promised to dismantle tribalism when PF was seen to be engaging in it has now turned around and made it a central pillar of his governance doctrine. This can not be dismissed as coincidence. It is systematic. It is deliberate. It is brazen.
Instead of accepting responsibility, Mr Hichilema buries the nation in a mixture of self-praise and self-pity. Many of his public addresses have become performances of “me this, me that,” as though he is the only Zambian President to ever face criticism. He portrays himself as a constantly wounded victim, even in cases where evidence clearly contradicts him. He speaks as though the entire country owes him quiet obedience, even in the face of visible governance failures.
Zambians are not blind. They see the contradictions. They see the tribal preferences. They see the arrogance. They see the widening gap between what was promised and what has been delivered. They see a president who has become so intoxicated with self-righteousness that he can no longer accept the existence of patriotic citizens who simply demand accountability.
What Mr Hichilema fails to understand is that many people from his own tribe are not interested in participating in his ethnic project. It’s embarrassing them, and they do not want to be used as shields for his failures. They do not want their heritage weaponised to protect political incompetence and dishonest. They will be the first to reject him when the hour of reckoning arrives because they know that tribalism destroys even those it is intended to benefit.
In 2026, the ballot box will deliver a lesson so unforgettable that Mr Hichilema will remember it for the rest of his political life. Not because Zambians hate him. Far from it. It will be because the nation is exhausted. Exhausted with excuses. Exhausted with victimhood. Exhausted with ethnic politics. The nation is exhausted with a president who has shown no shame in dividing the country while pretending to unite it.
Zambia deserves better. A president must unite, not fracture. A president must lead, not complain. A president must elevate national identity above personal insecurities. But Mr Hichilema has chosen the opposite path, and the consequences will fall squarely on him.
The people of Zambia will not allow their nation to be turned into a tribal battlefield. They will not surrender their democracy to emotional manipulation. They will not be silenced by narratives designed to hide incompetence. The Zambian voter will speak loudly, firmly, and decisively.
And when that day comes, Mr Hichilema will stand face to face with a truth he has avoided for too long. Zambians rejected tribalism before, and they will reject it again, regardless of who practices it.
Fred M’membe
President of the Socialist Party
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