Africa-Press – Zambia. I am not a regular football fan but I was ecstatic to watch the FIFA World Cup final match between Argentina and France on Sunday 18th December, 2022. The evenly matched teams displayed skill and professionalism and the play was no doubt hilarious.
Coming from such an event I was on Tuesday, 20th December, 2022 dispirited watching the press conference by HH and carefully listening to him about his view of the state of the economy and the affairs of State. I felt like taking some sedatives or paracetamol for the duration of the press conference. His want of communication skills although not of his own making, is something to make one fret. But this is not his only deficiency. More than one year in State House as president, the seat he craved so much for for 23 years, his ignorance and lack of grasp of basic facts is more than embarrassing. His logic is warped and incoherent. HH is still steeped in his economics text book scholarly works that figures do not lie and, therefore, the more people believe in those figures and graphs, the more they should come to believe in the improvement of their standard of living. That a drop in the inflation rate from 24% under PF to 09% under UPND is a major correlative improvement in the people’s cost of living even as hunger and abject starvation are loaming large across the country.
When Donald Trump was facing resistance from congress against selling US military hardware to Saudi Arabia following the killing of the journalist Jamal Kashoggi in 2018 in Istanbul, his response was that the US would lose the Saudi market and hence give that business opportunity to China. HH expressed a similar view using Trump’s logic when asked why UPND is exporting power to neighboring countries at the expense of those who voted for him and now have to endure long hours of loadshedding, saying that the market for power supply to these countries is good business for the country. According to him as a capitalist or a product of the said system, business is paramount even if it does not serve the interest of the people, the owners of the power he is exporting. The argument as put forward by one of the ingenious young reporters that the export of power would adversely affect the economy and the people went unheeded.
It was clear to me that HH does not have the time or privilege to read any briefs as president. He acts like someone who knows it all. As a result, he is a cause of embarrassment to the press conference audience outside the coterie of his praise-singers. He did not seem to know or understand for example, that the abolition of the death penalty would entail a repeal of article 12 of the constitution which provides for death sentences for some capital offences and that he does not have the requisite two-thirds majority in parliament to undertake that task.
Outside all this, HH has todate shown no remorse for the litany of lies he churned out to the Zambian voters while in the opposition which he has failed to fulfil. Instead, he continues to promote and spread the monotonous narrative that the PF should remain culpable for the bad state of the economy todate, if not forever.
What was most interesting at the end was his U-turn and his taking solace in the five-year election mandate to allow him to deliver on his campaign promises. This is contrary to his earlier 100 days, five months and one year benchmarks. I am reminded of Antonio Itube in his book. The Librarian of Auschwitz when he says “Truth is put together by destiny, it’s nothing more than a whim of fate, and a lie on the other hand is more human; it’s created by mankind and tailor-made to purpose.’’ Let’s brace ourselves for more tailor-made lies by HH and UPND.
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