Africa-Press – Zambia. New book links Lungu statehouse to attempts to implicate HH to gassing saga An investigative journalist, Prince Kaliza, has released a book narrating how he was ‘abducted’ by police and detained for 18 days and later offered ‘a deal’ by ‘Statehouse agents’ to implicate then opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema in the gassing saga, that rocked the country in 2020, in exchange for his freedom and other gifts including a job.
Kaliza reveals that his ‘friends in the system’ explained that those key to his perplexing detention inclunded; the President, presidential affairs minister, minister of home affairs, minister of justice, minister of communication and the police IG. The former Prime TV reporter narrates that his friends revealed to him that he was being held to give Statehouse time to finalise ways of convincing him to implicate Hichilema. Kaliza says the ‘Statehouse agents’ offered him a press job at Zambia’s UN embassy in New York, a brand new 4×4 Hilux and K500, 000 cash to say Hichilema and UPND agents were threatening his life over the gassing saga. According to the book, the ‘Statehouse agents’ assured Kaliza that ‘other UPND members had already started testifying against Hichilema’.
In his book ‘Implicating Hakainde Hichilema in gassing’, Kaliza reveals how during his detention he shared a cell with UPND 2021 MP candidate for Mandevu, Aaron Mulope, who had been dragged to police by lands minister Jean Kapata over forest 27, a Copperbelt man who was robbed of K170, 000 by police and accused of being a gassing mastermind and a ‘young guy’, also from Copperbelt, who was linked to Spax Mining’s case.
Through his ‘friends in the system’ Kaliza says he came to learn of Mukula illegal activities among senior govt officials and ‘a councillor who bought a bank for K300 million with all its assets’ .
The author says his ordeal became a huge burden on his mental and physical well-being to the extent that he attempted to commit suicide. He says he was saved by a text from his father just at the moment he was about to take Jik in the early hours of the morning on the fateful day that miraculously never was. His friends had sneaked ‘a small phone’ to him to keep each other updated. That secret phone and a text from his dad saved his life.
The Kaliza story runs similar to the Hatembos and Wilfred Hichilema & others sagas who were also being coerced to implicate Hichilema as a way of stopping him (Hichilema) from contesting the 2021 elections. The book can be purchased from the author. -Zambia Blog
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