Tuesday, March 19, 2024

We Will Not Beg For President Lungu For Dialogue To Take Place-Church Leaders

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HH and other opposition leaders attending the launch of the National Dialogue and Reconciliation at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross
HH and other opposition leaders attending the launch of the National Dialogue and Reconciliation at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross

The drama surrounding the anticipated commencement of the national political dialogue continued to unfold on Friday as the three Church Mother Bodies (CMBs) leaders served Zambians the latest episode by launching the process without some key stakeholders that included the Republican President and ZCID members.

On Thursday ZCID Board Chairperson Nathan Mulonga told a media briefing that their members would not be party to any dialogue launch due to among other reasons the disregard that the CMB leaders had exhibited towards the ZCID.

But on Friday responding to a caller during a live phone in radio program on One Love radio, Father Chikoya who is the Secretary General of CCZ said the Church will not not beg for anyone in their quest to achieve dialogue. The host had asked whether President Lungu would be in attendance during the launch.

“There is a lot we can do as a church without necessarily kneeling before anyone or begging for anyone. We can do theological reflections, bible study and many others. We are looking for a conversion of hearts and that is our agenda,” said the Clergy.

While the launch of the dialogue was in full swing a senior PF Central Committee Member Stephen Kampyongo was on radio Phoenix responding to accusations that his President was running away from the dialogue in the name of attending to matters affecting the region.

Kampyongo who is the Home Affairs Minister said as people responsible for the movement of the Republican President they will not take him to meetings without a defined agenda and a formal invitation within established procedures.

He said the President’s calendar was a public calendar which the CMB leaders should know and realise that the Republican President was different from the opposition leaders who are available at any time and that CMB leaders should consult the Presidency for his availability before setting dates for meetings and not set dates then as an after thought invite the President.

He also added that an official invitation to the President should reach his handlers 48hrs before the meeting as opposed to getting invitations through the media.

Meanwhile some stakeholders have castigated the CMB leaders for portraying an attitude that is likely to collapse the dialogue process.

Commenting the matter in a whatsapp group for politicians and journalists, NDC Spokesperson Erick Chanda questioned why the CMB leaders wanted to take over the responsibilities of ZCID an institution he said was created to facilitate inter party dialogue.

“Let’s use the systems that we have developed for ourselves. If we feel we have wrong people running The systems, let’s not abandon the systems but change the administrators. If the Church wants a role to play in the dialogue process, it should go through ZCID which is a legal institution designed to handle dialogue.

“Therefore, the response by the Church Mother Bodies on the meeting requested by the ZCID lacked diplomacy and only showed that the Church Mother Bodies does not recognise ZCID as a principal institution in the dialogue process. I am highly responsible for my own reasoning and I have no apologies to make.”

He added “Let us utilise our designed systems and strengthen them. Yes, ZCID in its current form may not function to our expectations but we can make the ZCID effective than abandoning the legal institution that we designed for ourselves. As politicians, let us help the Church realise that it had taken a wrong path and it must go back to ZCID path. Give to Ceaser what belongs to Ceaser and to God what belongs to God. Jehovah God be with us all!”

And MMD National secretary Raphael Nakacinda bemoaned the attitude of the three CMB leaders to go ahead with the program without the presence and availability of government including President Lungu, a move he said may be interpreted as religious arrogance.

He noted that the credibility of the church sitting politicians down without a bias was fast diminishing adding that the attitude of the church should not be allowed to collapse an already agreed upon dialogue and reform process.

“The objective of this political dialogue is to achieve pragmatic solutions to law inadequacies. At a deeper level, the aim is to address conflict drivers and foster reconciliation, build a greater national consensus and social cohesion, and define a shared vision of the future.

“A neutral chair doesn’t get deeply involved to the extent of prescribing the outcomes. It is up to the broad based dialogue audience to determine what sort of outcomes and deliverables. The three Church leaders we invited to chair have eroded their own credibility by their conduct. Dialogue is a shared responsibility,” he said.

A poorly attended launch led the three Church mother bodies to hold an emergency meeting last night to find a way forward.

51 COMMENTS

    • You are missing the point. I’m a full catholic and I understand that the church teaches us to respect those in power. It follows therefore that the church is wrong by inviting the Republican president through the press. You talk about Kaunda. …man check it all those foools who fought Kaunda church, FTJ, Levy etc including church men are dead and KK is enjoying life to the fullest. Removing Lungu from power won’t add value to any of these masquerades including you. Trust HH at your own peril. For all I know, his bank balance may have reduced to appease. You don’t have to kneel…just send an official to the president and all will be ok. It appears HH is in charge of this charade.

    • If PF is not attending, there is no further comment but just to say what a shame!!!

      Whoops, they did it again !!!

    • I am a passionate advocate for the national dialogue. But here-forth, good expert judgement can notice that that regrettably, the process has failed flat and is now dead. The CMB has wittingly or unwittingly killed the initiative with competing gregarious interests. What they are despicably shoving now is nothing but a lifeless circus if now a mappet show of 2019. In trying to subvert the ZCID or the state, the CMB has lost its campus because it has curved in to political bias than retaining credibility, impartiality and good peace drivers the Church should be. It will be impossible for the Telesphore Mpundu driven agenda to win any buy-in from stakeholders. How can they realize national dialogue with such belligerence by chaotically engaging one side of the coin? Time to disband.

    • You are a liar. How old where you in 1980, 1990 and last time captain Solo tried to take the government by force. These church leaders are the reason why genocide happen all over the world because they believe with impunity that they are not answerable to anyone even when they instigate and create chaos as they are doing even right now. Mwaba amafumo hiding behind the name of Jehovah God whilst you are growing cheeks, pot bellies including buttocks. Muli bapuba bonse imwe. Muli a mambala. Whom can you cheat?

    • Do all these Church Mother Bodies attend the National Day of Prayers or Commemoration of Zambia as a Christian Nation???

      Clearly there’s a hidden agenda here. How can the Chair be the Secretariat at the same time? Neutrality of the Chair is of atmost importance to the confidence of all stakeholders and to the success of any such dialogue.

      To say we can’t beg for anyone is to insinuate that the Church simply wants to preach a predetermined position whether one attends or not, as they can either hear it in person or through the media when “WE” make a press statement.

      Apart from being Chair, they’ve assumed Secretarial duties, and have also become participants in the Dialogue. Amazing…!

    • ONLY A FOOL WILL TAKE LUNGU AND PF SERIOUSLY ON DIALOGUE AND RECONCILIATION. All WE NEED IS TO RESPOND WITH FIRE FOR WITH PF THUGS. THEY BEAT YOU, YOU BEAT THEM, THEY DESTROY HH’s BILL BOARDS, DESTROY LUNGU’s TOO. YOU CAN NOT BEG TO NEGOTIATE WITH THUGS, KU FIPONONA FYE FI PF PLUS NOW WE ARE THE MAJORITY AS UPND TETI BATUTINYE.

      So AMOS CHANDA WAS FOOLING THE NATION WHEN HE TOLD US ON 5TH JANUARY THAT LUNGU WILL BE ATTENDING THE MEETING ON 18TH. IF LUNGU IS NOT AVAILABLE SO PF CAN NOT SEND THE VICE OR REPRESENTATIVE. LISTEN WHETHER WITH OR WITHOUT LUNGU THE DIALOGUE WILL CONTINUE. WHEN KAUNDA WAS KICKED OUT IT WAS THE CHURCH WHICH STOOD FOR AND SO WAS THIRD TERM AND NOW EVEN WITH LUNGU THE CHURCH IS A TESTED AND TRUSTED FRIEND AND NO AMOUNT OF FAKE PROPAGANDA WILL DETRACT US, THE…

    • Take this Father Chikoya from CBM out from the dialogue. His statement has proved his childish and selfish agenda to become big for nothing. ( more like seeking a 15 minutes fame )

      I wonder how he runs and conducts his summons at his church. He is a stup1d and a bully.

      The process has not kicked off and he is already full of Hot Air. What an Idi0t.

      He is sounds like he runs a bitter at heart opposition party.

  1. Opposition leaders that do not attend the national day of prayers are called all kind of names by the christians of this great Christian nation called Zambia. Now the defender of the constitution of this great Christian nation is busy avoiding the dialogue called for by Church Leaders. Any suggestions for a name for this kind of behaviour? The Great Pretender, maybe?

    • Be fair. …you don’t expect the Republican president to attend a wedding where he’s been invited through a newspaper. The churches are being mischievous.

    • @Ndanje
      To be fair, HOW MANY PF PEOPLE HAVE WEIGHED IN ON THIS DIALOGUE ISSUE? Too many spokesmen and it was clear PF was doing what they good at ..Bluffing..to avoid attending. Now you are here defending the undefendable…AS USUAL!!
      On January 5th, this is what Amos Chanda said and I quote: State House says President Edgar will attend the national dialogue meeting set for January 18, 2019……Amos Chanda said the Head of State is committed to the national dialogue process and is hopeful that ZCID and Church mother bodies will create a platform that will build confidence and competence in the process.

    • @2.3 Fwebene, I honestly don’t see what you see in your father. What do I see in Lungu ? I see a human being just like myself. …that’s what I see. The reason why your party loses elections is that you look down on people. …people who actually vote.

  2. That is a grave mistake you are making as a church. Church leaders should not use such a language if they are to mediate in national matters. Dialogue is between HH and Lungu. Leave them at your own peril. These are presidents with a majority following. Some of the people you have invited are just there to wine and dine. The dialogue process should be done with a meek heart not being pompous. Such language from mediators is an unacceptable. There is nothing that you will achieve if you remove HH and Lungu in the equation. It will just be another academic exercise which will just be written on a wasted paper. That statement is not supposed to be in a dialogue process. Otherwise, the exercise is in futility.

    • Just wait for the truth. …someone has a bone to grind. These people themselves are divided as 3 mother bodies, why not the mother body. How can a divided house bring unity? And like you said the language is primitive and I am sure Lungu will not be cowed by this pharesee.

  3. By the way 1.0 the church influenced me against Kaunda, but this time I will make up my own mind on what to follow. Remember these are just ordinary people, and they will die just like you. Let logic rule not emotions.

    • 1.0 A respected priest ” borrowed ” 1/2 million kwacha from various congregants and failed to pay. This was in Kitwe Mindolo. All the church has done is to remove him from that particular parish and keep on assuring the “lenders “. My point is that these people are not wiser than anyone else. They are there to preach the gospel which I am afraid they have breached. The language by your priest is abnormal. I know you will support anything that is disparaging Lungu whether it’s wrong or right.

  4. I think this was just a launch,that means a lot is yet to be done which gives all the stake holders to put their houses in order even apologise where they haven’t done well.

  5. There is speculation that PF failed to send delegates to the dialogue launch due to lack of skilled personnel required to make such representation. The likely few skilled and qualified members such as KBF refused to commit themselves/due to growing factions on the party after the twist in Candidature of ECL for 2021. Just as in Presidential Debates ECL will never attend the dialogue.

  6. Hahaha church mother Bodies being compromised by an opposition leader ,mark my words these church leaders will regret because they are not representing the church but HH so the people will speak in 2021 .

  7. When a wife and a husband are at loggerheads, parents are supposed to bring the couple together for the sake of marriage. Parents should not produce words that will divide their children. Divisive words are a recipe for disintegration of marriage. The language from a Church mother body, if it is true, should be condemned by people who have a heart of dialogue process. Dialogue gathering can either build or break the parties to the process according to the way it is handled. People who are chairing these dialogue meeting should not think they are cleverer than any one of us. We have people who are knowledgeable in conflict management in our highest institutions of learning who can do better than church mother bodies. The dialogue table should be approached with meekness and humility.

  8. What is to dialogue: according to the American dictionary; it is to take part in a conversation or discussion to resolve a problem.
    In this article, the main players in the problem are HH and the recognised head of state. So the facilitators cannot go ahead solving a problem with one player. It takes skilled facilitators to bring warring parties to dialogue, even if it means kneeling for them to come. If facilitators are incapable of bringing the two parties together then, to begin with, there is no dialogue and no headway at all.
    Change of facilitators may be the starting point.

    • That’s where you are wrong. …the whole issue is about supporting hh. I am sure his party must have even paid for the venue and refreshments using a proxy. Lungu is president and if this priest doesn’t want to accept that fact let him get lost.

  9. This is where ECL needs to show his leadership skills and show the nation in which direction he is steering the ship, he is the president for all Zambians and not only PF. That said, the questions I beg answers for are. why should citizens beg to have an audience with the president? How can the president claim to be too busy to have a sit down with his people?

  10. Let them have dialogue with him so that he is able to accept and the head of state.

    Let them also sit down with him so that he can learn to accept election results.

    Let them also sit down so that he stops calling head of state chimbwi no plan

    Let them also have dialogue with him so that he starts attending nation al day of prayer

  11. Thes organisations are just soiling themselves with sewer discharge

    Look at SDA. They keep smart. they just speak through the ballot.

    Is hh someone to die for. Someone that can only attend church service when the theme is state house

  12. He has failed to enter state house through tribalism

    He has failed to enter state house through ballot

    He has failed to enter state house through con court

    He has failed to enter state house through political pacts

    Now he wants try enter state house through Church

  13. the pf is arrogant i see them finishing their race in a humiliated manner god will reduce you to some dust. kk used to say do not take god s people for granted . and now you are taking the people for that. dont be mislead by those small parties and thieves.

  14. Thought PF government made it very clearly that it will negotiate with itself. Does this reaction from PF take any body by surprise?

  15. If the the secretary to the CMB said he can not beg for any one,then you are not fit to facilitate the dialogue. If the MCB wants to bring the ruling and the opposition together, they are supposed to beg for whoever refuse to attend.

    • After all that’s what dialogue is all about. …convincing parties to cooperate. Even the Bible that priest carries with says this. You will find this in most of the Letter of James. By exhibiting such arrogance especially a head of state, the priest has rendered himself irrelevant to the socalled dialogue.

    • Whoops, they did it again !!

      A bunch of “dribblers”, always trying to find a reason why and blaming others.

      Stop those lame excuses, everyone anticipated that, if you didn’t see it coming, then good luck in your effort to blame the priest or the church to justify ECL`s failure to attend.
      Yesterday it was HH and now its the church and the priest, right??? Come on.

  16. The Catholic Church has become a very dangerous cult. After causing the genocide in Rwanda, their focus is on the DRC, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

  17. CMB are partisan from their statement, they cannot settle disputes. Hope they are not being used by bitter people. Problem this country is full of bitter people all because of personal gain. If the system cannot benefit them then it’s all bitterness. We should pray to God to give us a true leader who will love the country and serve the people. For now be assured we have non be it inside or outside government.

  18. Now the church have realized that FP are crooks. My appeal to the church. Please start training people who should come and monitor elections.

  19. The language from CMB is biased and clearly not well thought. Think the president did well to keep away from these clowns. If they continue next time send Bowman Lusambo and Jean Kapata to baptise them again. They are unfit to chair this important meeting. May be ZCID could have done better.

  20. The church has been misguiding the world under the guise of being men and women of God and instigated genocide in some countries. And yet they are just as imperfect and as human as anyone else. They fart, poop, cough even die as we all do. So what makes them special than seasoned politicians in ZCID who are more level headed because they come from different political parties and know what is at stake. You dont create an addendum and then invite a sitting and republican president as an afterthought because you have elected to be on the side of a few individuals. Ask Nancy Pelosi in the USA who is speaker of the congress and tried to bar president Trump from his state of union as someone elected by 160 million plus americans as opposed to a few hundred democrats. The church has been given…

  21. The church has been given tax exemption by the government and hence can bring in things from foreign countries tax free and enrich themselves at the expense of their flock. If I was ECL like Trump has done to Pelosi, is yank these prerogatives we give to these criminals masquerading as men and women of god. You have built manshions, bought planes and cars, sent your children to schools abroard at the expense of ordinarly poor flocks that follow you? Give me a break you children of vipers.

  22. Did kambwili attend this launch?personally i feel the cmbs shud ve done wel to invite the president officially to avoid any excuse from pf.ecl and hh are cardinal to this dialogue coz the hve the largest following.the absence of anyone of these two makes the whole process futile.reconciliation is mainly btween pf and upnd.

    • But reconciliation over what fight?
      Its HH and UPND to just accept the last election result and wait for the next one.
      There is no need for any form of antagonism. PF or even EL does not or has never antagonized UPND or HH. Please educate me otherwise. If there things in the Constitution that need changing, then call for a constitution review and submit. There is more than just HH to the changing of the rules of Governance. It should be a National Constitution review.

  23. The Church was invited to CHAIR the dialogue process not to make Agenda because the Agenda was made in Siavonga. Further more it was agreed that ZCID will do the secretary work and not the church. If this thing doesn’t work out right we should hold the church responsible. And in future send the official invitation to the Presidency through Cabinet office so that we don’t have excuses as to why the President is not attending

  24. These are the kicks of a dying horse. Lungu had clearly shown his craving for criminality. Slowly we are seeing that even getting to state house was done by his criminal activities. The messege is loud and clear this man has a criminal mind but well meaning Zambians will stop him.

  25. “Let’s use the systems that we have developed for ourselves. If we feel we have wrong people running The systems, let’s not abandon the systems but change the administrators. If the Church wants a role to play in the dialogue process, itshould go through ZCID which is a legal institution designed to handle dialogue….”
    NDC Spokesperson Eric Chanda questioned why the CMB leaders wanted to take over the responsibilities of ZCID an institution he said was created to facilitate inter party dialogue.

  26. Interesting that we choose to cheer the church when it suits us. The CC support the late Michael Sata’s PF, everyone was dancing. Today they are demonized by some for not begging the same party they helped usher into power to attend the IPD. We need to realise that no one outlives time. Not HH not ECL nor any body under the sun. But the church of Jesus Christ will prevail and nothing will prevent that! Take note! I said the church not the CMB.

  27. “Father Chikoya who is the Secretary General of CCZ said the Church will not beg for anyone in their quest to achieve dialogue. The host had asked whether President Lungu would be in attendance during the launch.”

    Is that the language of a Bishop who is supposed to lead dialigue? What an insult to the President and the people of Zambia! But it reveals the attitude of the church in this so called dialogue. To me the dialogue has been killed by this Bishop’s statement. I hope the emergency meeting of the church mother bodies will censure this bishop and issue an apology to give this dialogue a second chance. Otherwise it is dead awaiting burial.
    Alternatively the dialogue has not begun at all, as this was a false start, like running before the whistle in athletics.

  28. Yes running before the whistle indeed.
    The biggest problem we have currently in the world and in Africa in particular is that the Catholic Church especially thinks they can change Governments at their will. It is regrettable.

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