Africa-Press – Zambia. In my last Facebook write up I concluded it by throwing a caution to the reader that we should brace ourselves for more lies from HH and UPND. I was not wrong as HH would prove during his speech at the State House luncheon he hosted to mark what he calls the abolition of the death penalty on Wednesday 28th December 2022.
I was dismayed to hear HH make claim to the fact that he knew that there were Zambian prisoners who had been wrongly executed under the death penalty in the past when they were actually innocent. How did he know this? Because he himself was once on death row at Mukobeko Maximum Prison, he told his audience. I saw the cameras zoom on the Chief Justice. Really? If HH had asked for a written brief from his legal team, he would have been advised that he was never on death row but I am sure he did not bother to do so. Like he has done in the past, he wants to intentionally and deliberately run with this narrative that he is a treason hero. I, therefore, disagreed with a UPND friend of mine who said that HH’s statement was one made out of ignorance by a layman. A man like him whose desire is to write and doctor his autobiography during the lifetime of all those who know his past is nothing but a pathological liar. His insatiable appetite for reconstructing his political image is unquenchable.
On the same day as HH was making his outrageous remarks, CNN and BBC were running a story of one George Santos, a Republican congressman who recently won an election in New York on a falsified resume. Santos had made claims that he was a university graduate and that he had worked for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup when in fact not.
He also falsely said he was of Jewish Heritage. Although there is a parallel between the two stories, as a lie is a lie, there is growing pressure on Santos to resign his congressional seat while for HH who is occupying the highest position in the land, his on-going lies whether in economics when he repeatedly says that he took over government in August, 2021 when the Dollar- Kwacha rate was 1:24 when the actual rate was 1:17 or in politics that he is a death row survivor are simply glossed over by society at large. Is it any wonder that it is such want of honesty and integrity in leadership at the highest level that our progress is hampered as a country. At what point should we call to heel a president, minister or even a clergyman who intentionally lies or falsifies what he is or is not?
I consulted the Chambers 21st Century Dictionary for the meaning of the term “death row.’’ It is given as “part of a prison where people who have been sentenced to death are kept’’ HH was never tried and convicted of treason and consequently sentenced to death, so the definition disqualifies him immediately. Let him leave such a claim to Edward Shamwana or Nelson Mandela.
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