Africa-Press – Zambia. Sishuwa Sishuwa, our very own foremost public intellectual and fearless critic of all things wrong in our politics, and a consistent defender of the ideal of our version of liberal democracy, has fluently and very ably explained why Hakainde Hichilema is responsible, ultimately, for the conduct of all his appointees in government.
Hichilema it is, after all, as President of Zambia and therefore chief executive officer of Zambia’s rotten capitalist system, who hires and fires them, at his own pleasure and need not justify this before anyone. Hichilema hires them, within the bounds of our Constitution and laws, to serve his purposes, and he has a free hand accorded to him again by our Constitution and laws, to dismiss them when they fail to do so, or when, for any reason, he so feels like.
Of course, Hakainde Hichilema’s neurotic praise singers are well within their democratic rights to do whatever they want, say whatever they wish including actually insulting Sishuwa Sishuwa for so ably explaining the source of all our problems in our politics today, as long as they remain within the bounds of our constitution and laws, in their efforts to shield their man-god from blame. I am quite happy, and ready, actually, to defend Hakainde Hichilema’s praise singers’ constitutional and democratic rights to freely and fully express themselves, and as repugnantly as their hearts may desire.
Frequently, it gives me great pleasure and sometimes shock to learn the depth of depravity purportedly quite educated and elucidate individuals can sink to, to defend the indefensible, the ridiculous, the foolishly irrational, in their efforts to shield their neon god, from blame.
It is such that a healthy, intelligent, rational, inspiring and problem-solving conversation between the logical, politically and morally sound arguments advanced by Sishuwa Sishuwa and the loud noises from Hakainde Hichilema’s praise singers is impossible: they are both pursuing perfectly irreconcilable objectives – Sishuwa seeks to rationally persuade others to see his point of view in the hope that our politics, and therefore our lives, may improve; the praise singers, on the other hand, are out to smother to death any critic of their beloved idol, no matter how naked and wrong their fake demigod whom they worship may be. Fortunately, all demigods come and go: the morally just and the truth are always victorious in the end; and they survive them all.
On the intellectual, rational, moral, legal, constitutional and subjective liberal democratic foundations of everything Sishuwa Sishuwa has said in his piece on why Hakainde Hichilema won’t fire our Idiot General – IG – of the Zambia Police Graphel Musamba, I am in complete agreement with Sishuwa Sishuwa. In a saner Zambia, I would be happily looking forward to equally but antithetical intellectual, rational, moral, legal, constitutional and subjective civilised counter responses to what Sishuwa Sishuwa has written. But, superstition, virulent abuse of critics, and sometimes actually murdering them, rather than rational argumentation and civilising debates, are the nutritional staple of those who worship fake demigods whom they actually construct themselves!
To shut up, give up in frustration, because of the unsettling, deafening and debilitating abuse from praise singers, or from fear of actual mental and physical harm including death, is to accord these, actually, forces of primitive superstitions and darkness, unearned victory. It is the unstated dark intentions in Sishuwa’s piece, the unholy and thoroughly objectively undemocratic reasons why Hakainde Hichilema will not fire the IG of the Zambia Police, that Sishuwa Sishuwa’s article drew my attention to.
It is not only the IG of the Zambia Police who needs to be shown the door, then arrested, charged, prosecuted for violating our Constitution and clearly for breaking several laws, and locked away in jail, hopefully for a long time: it is several other key government and parastatal presidential appointments, ministers, the Speaker of our National Assembly, possibly the Chief Justice as well, and of course the chief culprit himself: President Hakainde Hichilema. Any objective, impartial, nonpartisan and rational assessment of the Hakainde UPND government, now three years in office, reveals several fatal constitutional abuses and criminal violations, including and facilitated by Hakainde Hichilema. Hakainde Hichilema swore to defend and protect our Constitution and laws. Those he appoints do the same, including in some cases swearing loyalty to Hakainde Hichilema as the President of Zambia.
IG Graphel Musamba, like all his predecessors under Hakainde Hichilema’s government, has presided over a police force that has consistently criminally violated the constitution by abrogating unto themselves the power to curtail especially one of our most basic, constitutional, human and democratic right: the right to freely associate, assemble and share ideas.
It is three years now and our politicians in the opposition cannot hold public mass meetings to share with us their ideas. Critical voices are intimidated and gagged. Why? It is Hakainde Hichilema himself, the UPND and their foreign and imperialist backers who are mortally scared of critical voices and opposition political party public mass meetings: the US, UK, EU, Japan, India, Russia, China, and all foreign intelligence agencies with a presence in Zambia know what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) know and fear the most, in Zambia today: Zambia is a tinder box capable of blowing up any time because of the severe socio-economic mass suffering Hakainde Hichilema and his UPND have unleashed upon the majority of Zambians. Such an explosion would torpedo all the imperialist designs thrust upon Zambia and supervised by Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND. This is why Hakainde loves IG Musamba: he happily tramples on our constitutional rights and freedoms on behalf of Hakainde and our imperialist masters.
Among the ministers, Mtolo Phiri is clearly a nut-head who deserves to be fired and jailed not only for the corruption he has facilitated at the Ministry of Agriculture, but also for the disastrous and criminal management of maize in our strategic food reserves all which have now exploded untold mass hunger in Zambia. Hakainde has openly participated in the abuse of procurement processes at the Ministry of Agriculture, in favour of his allied businesses. Peter Chibwe Kapala at the Ministry of Energy needs to be fired, thoroughly investigated, arrested, charged, tried and hopefully locked away for a long time for suspected corruption, gross incompetence, ministerial impropriety, and for plunging the country into darkness when his political party had mocked “climate change” as a possible cause of load shedding. Coldly, selfishly, Kapala has callously defended raising the price of electricity at a time of extreme electricity shortages in the country, completely unconcerned about the deadly economic and social impacts of such suicidal government decisions.
Among other things, Situmbeko Musokotwane refused to fund government purchases of maize from farmers and asked hapless Mtolo Phiri to sell the maize in our strategic reserves, which maize was largely exported, and pay the farmers. Faced with a drought, which is one key reason a country protects and keeps some of its food in strategic reserve storage, more than six million Zambians now face acute hunger and possible death from famine. This is actually wilful and premeditated murder of a large section of our national population: only an idiot with a pathological cashbox mentality as a minister can allow the depletion of food reserves in order to repay the very same farmers who produced the maize! That much of this maize ends up being exported elevates the level of criminality to high heaven. Hakainde Hichilema knew about all this, and probably even made the suggestion to offload maize from our strategic reserves onto the local and international markets.
In opposition Hakainde not only promised to lower drastically the price of maize and mealie meal for Zambians, but also hypocritically pretended to be a caring leader concerned about the hunger prevalent in the country then, and a farmer who would also protect our farmers. No caring government would keep Musokotwane for a single day, as Zambia’s Minister of Finance, for this and many other things.
It is UPND and Hakainde Hichilema’s most useful idiot, Minister of Mines Paul C Kabuswe, who has done perhaps more harm to Zambia than most of Hakainde’s ministers.
This man, Kabuswe, has pretended to preside over our mineral sector while Hakainde Hichilema and his friends wire the mineral sector for themselves, their foreign backers and Western governments, largely. Delays, now we know also occasioned by Hakainde Hichilema’s inside dealings to secure and protect their own personal interests in our mineral sector, have wrought untold suffering on Zambia generally, and the Copperbelt in particular. Lavash tax concessions and criminal deals have characterised UPND handling of our mineral sector. Meanwhile, Zambians continue to die in accidents in unsecured mines.
Through Paul Kabuswe and himself, Hakainde Hichilema has amply demonstrated the contempt, lack of respect for Zambians and our ability to think and understand the goings on in the mines. He has gone on to offload vital ownership of huge chunks of mines to foreigners, and allegedly to himself and his local cronies too, without parliament scrutiny and approval.
Apart from a sanity check, among other things, Paul Kabuswe must be thoroughly investigated, arrested, charged, prosecuted and hopefully locked up in jail for a very long time for suspected corruption, illegal dealings in the mines, unconstitutional offloading and loss of state property to private concerns, and violations of parliamentary and ministerial ethics: he is a liar of note too.
Generally, all the cabinet ministers of Hakainde Hichilema’s UPND government are individually and collectively liable for all the criminality and constitutional violations since their appointment by Hakainde Hichilema. It is perhaps this intimately shared criminality and constitutional vandalism that has secured their positions, as ministers, thus far. They all very well belong to jail, and for varying long jail terms too.
So, dear Sishuwa Sishuwa, apart from what you have correctly said, Graphel Musamba is also a very essential and necessary cog in the unconstitutional and criminal machinery of the UPND government. He needs not only to curtail our freedoms and rights, he must also criminally guard and guarantee the false electoral victory of Hakainde Hichilema, and company, in August 2021 (they clearly won by false pretences, by political fraud, they know), and future elections, otherwise the entire unconstitutional and criminal edifice Hichilema is presiding over, and its international web will come crushing down.
It is about, and for immense power – economic and political – that the IG Graphel Musamba cannot be fired: this also explains why Hakainde has actually expressed his satisfaction with IG Musamba. A day of reckoning is coming, soon too, for all of them.
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