Once upon a time Laura Miti, Fumba Chama, Sishuwa Sishuwa, O’brien Kaaba and several others, all worked in unison as activists or commentators to kick out of power the Patriotic Front, apparently for their governance failures. That’s as it should be.
Fast forward. The United Party for National Development has won the elections and formed government. Pilato has transitioned from a scruffy-looking critic of government to a dandy fresh-smelling permanent secretary. Miti and Kaaba sit on some government boards. Sishuwa now cuts a lonely figure. His criticisms of the UPND government are now often criticised by Miti and Kaaba as if choreographed to take the sting out of anything Sishuwa says against the government.
Recently, Kaaba was in the centre of a three-way public fallout with ACC boss and the Solicitor General. Kaaba’s cup of frustration apparently reached the brim with corrupt shenanigans involving the ACC boss and state chambers boss. Which shenanigans were averse to the effectiveness of the ACC board on which Kaaba sat.
Solicitor General sues Kaaba for libel – “a published false statement that is damaging to a person’s reputation”.
Kaaba responds, bring it on! He promises to “demonstrate before Court the truthfulness of my assertions”. Naturally, the court will decide which is which, exonerate the character of one and blemish the other. Before sunset, the two are holding hands, smiling ear to ear. The belligerents met over a jar of chibwantu and the legal bout of titans was called off. After all that flamboyant display at the weigh-in! No reason is given.
Laura is unhappy Muchende pulled out too quickly. After exciting her with his weigh-in antics, she had every right to vent her frustration. “I was quite looking forward to him clearing his name of the grave corruption charges advanced against him by the good doctor,” she lamented. From the outset, she’d been Kaaba’s cheerleader. As Miti and Kaaba are close friends or colleagues, one can only believe she had firsthand knowledge of Kaaba’s punching power, impregnable defence, and formidable uppercut to which Muchende stood no chance. She’d be treacherous or reckless to urge a friend into such a fight if she thought he didn’t have a great chance.
Sherlock Holmes would point out the intriguing fact that Miti exempted Kaaba from the blame for backing out of the bout. Because the consent agreement was mutual by both parties, she should have equally put blame on “the good doctor”. Especially we do not know the terms of the agreement, who pleaded with the other, and so on. If Kaaba prostrated before Muchende begging for his life because his charges were baseless or whatever, Miti may have to thank Muchende for sparing Kaaba’s life even at the cost of the cloud of shame now hanging over Muchende’s name due to Kaaba’s potentially libelous claims. Miti saw the agreement damaging to Muchende but not to Kaaba.
Enters the nemesis. Sishuwa saw things differently from Miti. Kaaba’s own name was muddied and in dire need of redemption. Kaaba was intimidated, bribed into silence, had no proper evidence in the first place, or persuaded to ceasefire by party or tribal elders. Citing public interest, Sishuwa thinks Kaaba was wrong to enter into the agreement and should avoid entering into similar agreements. Miti won’t take this one lying down. How dare you attack the good doctor, your colleague and equal, a board member at my Alliance for Community Action?
Miti finds faulty Muchende’s pull out but is okay with Kaaba’s. It takes two to tango. If Kaaba is the principal, Muchende is complicit. If Muchende is the principal in the agreement, Kaaba is complicit. Either way, they fall together. But by Miti’s dodgy logic, Kaaba remains with his integrity unblemished. One can’t help but ask Miti, as Andy Dufresne asked the corrupt prison chief in Shawshank Redemption, “How can you be so obtuse? …. Is it deliberate?”. But such is Miti. If Lungu said 2+2=5 he’d be a fool. But if Hichilema said 2+2=5, he’d be wise.
How can you accuse Kaaba of being motivated by tribalism? Well, Miss Miti, tell us the true motivation and shame the Devil. But wait, Sishuwa never said that. He offered disjunctive permutations. One or two or three or four. None, farfetched. Possibly all two, three, or all of them as the disjunction is inclusive rather than exclusive. Ethnicity is the principal organising principle in Zambia or Kenyan politics. Hichilema’s UPND is a reincarnation of Nkumbula’s ANC and PF of Kapwepwe’s UPP. Any ideological differences are secondary, incidental, and superficial.
Sishuwa doesn’t just pick the ethnicity possibilities out of thin air. He supports it robustly with Michela Wrong’s It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistleblower that eerily and ominously anticipates UPND’s Zambia. Mwai Kibaki’s movement and electoral success rode on the anti-corruption banner. Like Hichilema’s. Both are keen to maintain the appearance of anti-corruption angels. Both achieve this through appointing mostly members of their ethnicity to the ACC, and the Governance and Ethics department in the Kibaki case. Both presidents are surrounded by tribesmen and those from cousin or ethno-political auxiliary groups, “with a few opportunistic ethnics tagging along for the ride.” In addition to giving some pretence of inclusivity. A few token outsiders can come in handy as useful idiots.
Anyone who reads Wrong’s book with an open mind will see the parallels and prophecy. Miti should read it. Even with a closed mind, one will see how the Kikuyu wazee forming the kiama – a council of ethnic elders, are in the thick of every corruption scandal. They manipulate young John Githongo and attempt to dissuade him from betraying the tribe by whistleblowing on the Kikuyu government. Put simply, ethnicity and corruption form a very tight knot.
Therefore, to highlight the possibility of an ethnic explanation for Kaaba’s sudden withdrawal is sensible. It is neither tribalistic nor does it commit any ad hominem fallacy. Not all ad hominem reasoning is fallacious. To call Miti “Amai Doti” is clearly ad hominem abusive, even if a counter to Miti’s own personal attacks on opposition leaders who include Saboi Imboela and Fred M’membe.
Sishuwa did not commit any ad hominem fallacy in so far as ethnicity is a potentially relevant consideration. It is immaterial whether Kaaba and Sishuwa are colleagues or academic equals. By thinking Sishuwa should not make certain guesses about Kaaba’s premature withdrawal, Miti reinforces Sishuwa’s guess regarding how Kaaba’s silence was bought. Some people, in fact, many people, think that tribesmen should not call each other out, at least not publicly. In the same way, Miti seems to appeal to collegial relations as reason not to call out possible wrong-doing.
Perhaps Sishuwa omitted an important possibility. Kaaba is one of the budding legal scholars in Zambia. Among his growing publication profile is a book on law of evidence in Zambia. So, when such a legal mind stands on an anthill and thumps his chest that he has a mountain of evidence of Muchende’s corruption, it is very likely there is a mountain of evidence. (For months now, Lusaka lawyer, Frank Gwaba has been complaining and daring Muchende over corruption). However, it may be this is corporate evidence of the ACC and not of Kaaba in his personal capacity. Going ahead with such evidence may potentially constitute professional misconduct that may attract possible censure from LAZ.
Under this scenario, the rational thing for Kaaba to do morally and for personal preservation is what he did. Kaaba has written intermittently about holes in Hichilema’s fight against corruption. This is laudable. It’s not Kaaba’s or Gwaba’s fault that Hichilema chooses to take Muchende’s side, for obvious reasons. Hopefully, the Muchende agreement does not incapacitate Kaaba in doing so in the future. What now?
Miti’s ACA was hyperactive and scathing against the PF. Sustained campaigns were mounted against perceived corruption and human rights abuses. Now ACA is subdued and confined to issuing sporadic, casual, if timid, statements about reports of corruption by the UPND. It seems clear that ACA is too close to the UPND with its director or board members being on boards and whatnot in the ruling government. This personal closeness compromises the organisation’s ability to offer effective and reliable checks and balances.
Perceptions of corruption count a lot in presidential elections. Perhaps, for Miti, a corrupt UPND with whom she’s friends, is better than a PF comeback in whatever form. She knows pointing out UPND corruption and lack of transparency aids the opposition, some of whom she loathes. She’d rather abet or ignore UPND corruption than indirectly improve chances of electoral success for the opposition. In contrast, Sishuwa seems not to exhibit such narrow partisan partiality, as human and fallible as he is. It can be a discomforting to those who will act noble when their personal interests align with ethical values but will abandon the values at the slightest conflict between abstract ideals and personal interest.
By Osward Bwali
