First and foremost, we want to make it clear we are not paid by anyone to write what we do; neither are we prompted by anyone to write on any topic! We take it as our solemn responsibility to contribute to the national discourse and development through our write ups.

Yesterday, we talked about Hon. Jack Mwimbu, the Minister of Home Affairs & Internal Security and gave details of how feel he may have lost the steam by allowing unnecessary checkpoints to come back on our already congested roads. We also took a swipe at him for letting the police embarrass the President by following Edgar Lungu around and bursting his secret meetings with some Catholic Bishops. Somebody quipped that Ministers have possibly neglected their responsibilities and are busy cutting deals no wonder they aren’t performing!

Anyway, today, we want to delve into an equally emotive subject – aka bunga! Ba Mtolo Phiri, what’s your responsibility as Minister of Agriculture? Is it just to eat or ensure our people are eating? When did you last venture into the other provinces to investigate challenges affecting our farmers; how government can cushion their hardships; what alternative crops our farmers can be encouraged or supported to grow given the climate change? You’re a total disappointment baaba!

When this country faced acute food shortages in early 2000s due to a persistent drought, President Mwanawasa came under severe pressure to import yellow maize. However, he stood his ground insisting, “GMOs are not good for my people and are harmful to our soil!”

Did people go without food? Negative! The legendary and indefatigable Mundia Sikatana, his able Minister of Agriculture traversed the width and breadth of this country in his gumboots and work suits launching and supervising winter maize projects! At the end of the day, there was enough food for everyone.

What measures are you putting in place to ensure that, moving forward the price of mealie meal will be affordable for everyone?

We’re almost in the middle of the year imwe ba Minister, have you flagged-off the distribution of farming inputs? Have you ensured that we have sufficient stocks of fertilizer in the nation? Have you identified reliable transporters to distribute the same across the country?

You are not only failing the President but also the people! There’s a lot of negative talk out there regarding the price of mealie meal; if people can only see you making every effort, they’d be rest assured it’s just a matter of time before the situation can stabilise. We know of many farmers that are willing to partner with government by growing winter maize, what they need is just logistical support.

Naimwe ba minister of Mines and Minerals Development, Paul Kabuswe, the whiff of stench emanating from your ministry nauseating! Our next stop is on your doorsteps…..

Prince Bill M. Kaping’a
Political/Social Analyst

We’ve no doubt President Hichilema means we’ll for our beloved nation; he’s always burning candles during the night in his quest to find ways and means of making good of what he had promised our people during the run up to the 2021 general elections. However, it seems there may be a few ministers who may not be firing on all the four cylinders to help the President actualise his promises. They’re either sleeping on duty or have lost the steam.

According to our humble understanding, the role of a minister is to help the President meet the aspirations of our people by helping him fulfill his campaign promises. One of the solemn promises the President made to the nation was to bring to an end all the unnecessary road blocks across the country. This was of course, received well by the general members of the public……the people loved it!

Once the UPND formed government, the Minister of Home Affairs and Internal Security informed the nation that moving forward, check-points have been outlawed unless otherwise the fixed ones, for security reasons. This was received with glee and ululation by the general public.

For a while, the ‘notorious’ men and women in the white caps disappeared from our roads. Everything seemed back to normal…….traffic moved seamlessly, there was little or no congestion on our roads, motorists were no longer being inconvenienced anyhow….Sanity had indeed been restored back on our roads. And then boom! Cops were back on the road in full throttle……doing what they know best; extracting bribes from the unsuspecting motorists.

One senior citizen, Kevin Soper couldn’t have put it better than the following, “Zambia Police is de-campaigning UPND by mounting snap check-points on the road, and collecting bribes…….driving anywhere is now demoralising; it’s a nightmare as you are made to wait on the road for long hours on end.’

He bemoans that the Police now have a tendency of jumping out from behind trees , bushes, and billboards at traffic lights, round abouts, humps to ambush the motorists. Soper further emphasises that the public has no issues with permanent security road blocks or speed traps, but ambushing motorists to extract bribes is total harrassment and criminal!

We now come to the issue of following Catholic priests, unnecessarily. It’s obviously common knowledge some Catholic priests have never taken a liking of UPND since inception for obvious reasons. They’d utilise every opportunity to decampaign the party whenever it suits them. In other words, the police are not doing the President a favour by ‘bursting’ the meetings that Lungu is having with these Catholic priests. Allow Lungu to continue having his consultative or strategic meetings with the priests; they are an exercise in futility. And God will judge them!

Those days whereby the clergy or traditional leaders would “dictate” to our people how they should cast their votes are long gone! Look at what transpired during the last elections……some pastors and priests literally turned the pulpits into campaign platforms and openly decampaigned the opposition UPND then, urging congregants to give their votes to the brutal PF regime. Did they have their way? The electorate, particularly the youth turned up in numbers and voted otherwise!

Some traditional leaders equally reduced themselves to cadres by absconding from their palaces to make forays into the villages and ‘order’ their subjects to vote for an extension of caderism, corruption, plunder and theft of national resources, tribalism and nepotism, gassing, unemployment! Did the electorate hearken them? Zero! They used their God given brains to do the right thing. In this age and era, there’s no priest, chief or celebrity who is going to teach our people how to vote as if they are children; they’d rather make the right decision using their God given brains!

Ba Jack Mwimbu, we’ve always had high confidence in you. Set your bearings right Sir!

In our next offering, we talk about the Minister of Agriculture. Hon. Mutolo Phiri, what does your job entail, to eat or ensure that our citizens are eating?

Anyway, until next time!

Prince Bill M. Kaping’a
Political/Social Analyst

The other day, former president, Edgar Lungu took to Social media to register his displeasure over what he deemed as prosecution of some of his supporters for hate speech; describing the same as, retrogressive and regionalism that undermines the “One Zambia, One Nation” motto.

He further wrote, “This morning, I have been reminded of Jackson Chama, a young Zambian who is serving one year imprisonment sentence in Kalomo prison since February 2024 for “hate speech” against the Tonga people. The offense was allegedly committed in Lusaka but the complainant emerged in Kalomo, Southern Province.”

He continues, “you all know the story of “Why Me”, another young man who is equally in police custody in Livingstone now for allegedly, “hate speech” against the Tonga people. The alleged offense was committed in Lusaka but again the complainant emerged from Southern Province.”

Lungu, can you really claim to be a lawyer of good standing in society? If indeed some folks in Southern province felt agrieved by those stupid remarks, do you honestly expect someone from Shan’gombo to file complaints, against the same ?

Lungu further alludes to the imprisonment of Chishimba Kambwili over the similar offenses of “hate speech” against the Tonga people. Interesting!

As a lawyer, we don’t expect Lungu to wantonly gloss over this issue by neglecting to help the public understand why the said individuals have found themselves into conflict with the law! We shall now seek to give a brief background of this without necessarily risking to bore our readers.

In February this year, Jackson Chama went ballistic on Tiktok declaring the people of Southern Province, unfit for government positions. Chama charged that; “no youth from Southern Province will be allowed to take up any government positions in the future because southerners are incapable to run the country as seen by your elders who have ruined your chances by their failure to run the nation…”

It’s shocking that an entire former president can find time to talk about “Why Me”. Were you the one sponsoring him to spew all that rubbish from the septic tank, Sir? “Why Me” is a perfect example of a poorly brought up creature! He has no morals or values at all. Once he got inebriated with his favourite Flying Fish, he’d take utmost pleasure in describing body anatomies in the most obscene, graphic and vile manner that would leave Bana Chimbusa in shock! At some point, he’d digress and vent his anger at “ifi ifibaTonga,” literally undressing them and describing them as the worst human beings!

As for Chishimba Kambwili, oh please, come on! Isn’t Lungu aware that Kambwili was once censured and banned from the campaign trail by the Electoral Commission of Zambia for making utterances that could have plunged our nation into total chaos?

Speaking during an interview on a live phone in radio station in Kasama, Kambwili claimed that the people in the southern region were so tribal that even if Jesus Christ came on earth and stood on a different political party, the people in the region would reject the Son of God and vote for their tribesman!”

Honestly, how can Lungu today complain of “ethnic injustice when a particular tribe has been a subject of contempt, ridicule and hate and even denied of job opportunities during the last 10 years of PF in power?

The behavioural pattern of Lungu in these past few days actually confirms what we’ve feared all along…..that Lungu is a hardcore tribalist, a danger to this nation!

Lungu must not even pretend to insinuate that “as a lawyer, former President, politician and law abiding citizen,” he is against any form of “hate speech” against any person, tribe, region or group of people anywhere!

For instance, when I wrote an article, Sata’s Family Forest Explained which detailed the extent of tribalism and regionalism in terms of individuals appointed to various senior government positions, Edgar Lungu as Home Affairs Minister wanted me to go to prison for treason, for simply stating the truth!

As our Republican President, he never ever bothered reigning in any of his senior officials or party members promoting tribalism or uttering tribal sentiments

During a Parliamentary by-election on Chilubi Island in 2020, Prof. Nkandu Luo would say, “In our land, in line with our tradition, you don’t just pick anyone to succeed me as Nkandu Luo, a Bisa, a Bemba. If I die, you can’t go and get a Tonga in Monze to succeed me.” What nonsense!

Did Lungu reprimand or ever seek to distance himself from such divisive remarks? Negative! He in fact went ahead and rewarded Luo as his running mate in the forthcoming crucial 2021 elections. This simply means he was in agreement with whatever she said.

A week earlier, Chanda Nyela, a staunch PF member openly asked the residents of Clhilubi against voting for any one connected to Tongas because they are bad people.

Did we see heads rolling for uttering such tribal sentiments? Negative!

It’s shocking that former president, Edgar Lungu should be the one to “see the speck in others today, when he actually ignored the log in his eyes” yesterday, when his own cabinet ministers and party cadres were in the forefront of openly sowing seeds of discord in the nation by uttering remarks that tend to expose certain ethnic groupings to contempt, ridicule and hate!

Lungu conveniently kept quiet when his own brutal cadres who had taken over the Lusaka Intercity Bus Terminus ambushed anyone arriving in the city, wearing any red attire and speaking iciTonga, by striping off their clothes and giving them a good beating for supporting the “cow!”

No, Sir! You are not the right person to be raising this issue, today.

When Tongas were being brutalized in public places, you looked the other way; when Tongas were being stereotyped by PF cadres including some senior members of your party, you conveniently kept quiet; worse still, your PF government starting from Micheal Sata to your government, brazenly sidelined people from the Zambezi provinces when allocating government jobs thereby eroding the spirit of the very, “One Zambia, One Nation” motto you want to talk about.

That you want to pretend to be concerned about unity in the nation is a matter of grave concern to some of us; please, try in the next life, Sir!

Prince Bill M. Kaping’a
Political) Social Analyst