The Felix Mutati MMD outspoken youth Prince Ndoyi has told Patriotic Front Secretary General Davies Mwila to caution his lower ranking officials to stop being disrespectful towards his party by displaying fake MMD members defecting to PF.

Mr. Ndoyi has wondered why PF is concentrating on defections in difficult areas other than paying attention to places where it matters like Petauke District and Eastern Province in general where people are leaving PF in huge numbers.

Reacting to the purported defection of MMD members to PF in Mwinilunga, Mr. Ndoyi laughed off the defection as fake and said those involved in staging MMD defections are directly undermining their own party President Edgar Lungu by assaulting an alliance which he has publicly acknowledged.

“It is clear that those involved in staging MMD defections are directly undermining their own party President Edgar Lungu. Who has on countless times publicly acknowledged and defended this MMD-PF working alliance including Mr Davies Mwila himself. So all we can say is, they are just disrespecting their own President, and for us we are not bothered at all.”

“Honourable Mwila is being cheated on creating an illusion, any good farmer will pay attention to his good soils to plant good seed there other than taking the best seed on hard rocks. In Eastern province people are leaving PF in huge numbers as seen in Petauke district but for them they want to pretend by staging defections in hard regions.”

On the alliance he further said the two parties are in an alliance hence any well meaning member of either parties should have the sense to stop any member from moving especially doing so publicly.

Mr. Ndoyi said it’s not fathomable for any senior member in their right frame of mind to parade people to pretend they are from MMD when it is a public secret they are working together.

“Politically it is incorrect and an insult for that matter. It goes against the principles of people in a relationship or in a politically beneficial mutual understanding. This is politics, and we need to move with caution and care. They cannot carry around this attitude of arrogance and a bully even knowing fully well that they are working with us”, he said.

Mr. Ndoyi advised Mr. Mwila to stop receiving defectors from MMD but instead carefully check if indeed they are members of MMD and guide them on the working relationship the two parties are enjoying because if he continues with the same trend there might be a backlash with disastrous consequences.

He also said arranging defections was an easy way of deceiving yourself that the party is growing but that the real growth of the party depends on having a systematic strategy of mobilisation on the ground.

Mr. Ndoyi said Mr. Mwila should put down a strong grassroots machinery that is actively mobilising people one by one through party registers.

He has since strongly called on the leadership from both parties to quickly engage in genuine dialogue on this issue of defections.

Mr. Ndoyi said the working relationship requires to be harmonised before they begin to have unnecessary differences and concerns.

A minister in President Edgar Lungu’s Cabinet and the leader of Zambia’s main opposition party have become the latest high profile public figures to be embroiled in a twitter war with Sishuwa Sishuwa, an outspoken academic whose acerbic political commentaries have frequently placed him at loggerheads with leading political figures in government and the opposition.

A tweet by Minister of Transport and Communications Dr Brian Mushimba on the benefits of automatic air navigation backfired spectacularly when it was met with a hard-hitting response from the University of Zambia (UNZA) lecturer.

On 29 June 2019, Dr Mushimba alighted from a plane at Lusaka’s Kenneth Kaunda International Airport minutes before he tweeted to share his experience of landing on the automatic navigation aircraft system.

“I have just experienced automatic landing at Lusaka airport; the plane landed itself with no pilots on the controls”, wrote Dr Mushimba on Twitter.

Over 80 of the minister’s followers liked his tweet while others used the opportunity to present outstanding grievances. A Twitter user who goes by the name of ‘Zambia in the Sun’ tweeted ‘Please tell President Lungu to reopen CBU’. A few others stuck to the subject of technological advances, praising the minister for what one follower termed ‘an awesome experience’.

As opposed to offering platitudes, Sishuwa used the minister’s experience to draw an analogy of the experiences of Zambians under the leadership of President Lungu and his government.

“What you felt momentarily is exactly what many Zambians have been feeling ever since Mr Lungu and you landed in public office: that Zambia has been on an autopilot mode with no leadership to control its drift towards a costly disaster of a protracted and endemic general crisis”, tweeted Sishuwa before he added that “The major difference is that while you may have had a smooth landing in the end, despite the lack of controls, Zambia, with no leadership to control its dangerous and unacceptable situation of directionless and unguided national drift, is headed for a catastrophic crash. Sadly in Zambia’s case, it is less a case of a functioning autopilot and more a case like the Malaysian Airlines flight where the pilot and his cabin crew (read Mr Lungu and his friends in Cabinet) deliberately crashed the plane (Zambia) into the sea (of corruption, division, etc.)!”

Sishuwa’s reply went viral, with several Zambians such as prominent musician Chama Fumba, popularly known as Pilato, governance activist Kupela Clarke, and ActionAid Country Director Nalucha Nganga-Ziba retweeting it with their own comments and praising it as expressing what many citizens feel but lack the courage to say publicly.

Later, the outspoken political commentator picked another Twitter argument with opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) leader Hakainde Hichilema, whom he sharply questioned for his growing turn to God in place of offering policy appeals to voters.

Hichilema had tweeted that “If there is something the PF should be afraid of, it is not us. It is the divine consequence of stealing from the Zambian people and embracing the evils of brutality while pretending to be Christian. God is fair and His will shall prevail”.

Nearly 300 of Hichilema’s followers on Twitter liked and praised the tweet. Trevor Mumba commended the UPND leader saying “What president HH is saying is that karma is a bad woman and she never forgets. A time of reckoning is coming”. Several others echoed Mumba’s sentiments.

But Sishuwa criticised the tweet and accused Hichilema of desperation and pandering to the Christian faithful in an attempt to win votes. He said the UPND leader should have instead promised to prosecute those responsible for pillaging public resources, if elected, charging that the obsession with God is holding Zambia back.

“I detect increasing piety in your posts, HH”, tweeted Sishuwa. “I cannot help but wonder whether you are pulling all stops now in getting that Christian vote or you actually believe what you write, including ascribing agency such as the power to punish wrongdoers to a deity. And what kind of God is this one, who, like a typical Zambian, stands and looks while all manner of plunder and destruction takes place? This obsession with God isn’t helping us at all, Mr Hichilema. In many ways, it is holding us back. We must exercise our minds a bit more”.

Hichilema subsequently responded rather dogmatically, tweeting “We are not ashamed of our reliance on God to give us strength as we endure our struggles. We are determined to change Zambia and we’ll continue to work tirelessly, even under difficult circumstances. Faith without works is futile.”

The UPND leader’s reply was met with choruses of “Amen” from his supporters, who also descended on Sishuwa’s tweet, taking turns to condemn it. The leading condemnation came from international trade and business consultant Trevor Simumba, who accused the critical academic of attacking the opposition leader’s faith.

“Sometimes we forget that HH was brutally attacked in his home with his family in real danger”, tweeted Simumba in response. “He was detained on trumped up treason charges and many attempts have been made on his life. Truly, I can understand his faith in God. It’s not easy being an opposition leader in Zambia”.

But Sishuwa dismissed Simumba’s reaction, saying it lacked substance and had little to do with anti-corruption reform. “I think this has little to do with the argument I raised. This isn’t about HH nor what he has or hasn’t gone through. I worry that you are conflating an idea with its proponent. A person is not the idea. Consequently, they do not begin to be attacked or defended as one”.

Simumba, who recently declared that Hichilema is the best option for Zambia, responded that “I can tell you as someone who has been threatened directly with death for holding an opposing view to the powers that be that without God, I would have given up and just stayed quiet like many good Zambians do. I fully relate to HH’s recent growing faith in God”.

“Trevor, I am not saying Hichilema shouldn’t believe in God. I am against surrendering our human agency to that God. If it takes God to punish thieves who are stealing public resources today, I might as well vote for that God, not Hichilema if I want a corrupt-free Zambia, no? You probably are closer to Hichilema. Please advise him properly including on the need to stop playing to the gallery. I am beginning to fear that should HH become President tomorrow, some will sing him praises pretty much like the guys in PF are doing to Lungu now.”

The respected international trade and business consultant who has announced plans to stand as a member of parliament in the 2021 election then accused Sishuwa of being angry. “You seem to be very angry lately and I think it’s clouding your very formidable analytical mind”, Simumba tweeted.

“How can I not be angry”, tweeted Sishuwa in response, “when public resources are being looted with impunity by Mr Lungu’s administration and the leader of Zambia’s main opposition responds by citing divine, not natural, consequence of stealing from Zambians? How about promising to prosecute those responsible?”

Another supporter of Hichilema’s tweet, Caesar Cheelo, said there is need to leave matters of corruption to God’s judgement, tweeting “But we are also rationale, talented and determined thinkers who have constantly exercised our minds. We could all do well to talk less and listen more! There’s wisdom in leaving God’s judgment to Him”. Unconvinced, Sishuwa hit back, tweeting “You are missing the point, Countryman, and are not helping Hichilema. The consequence of stealing from the Zambian people is natural, not divine. Why didn’t HH simply promise to prosecute those who are corrupt and stealing public resources today? Why leave the matter to God?”

Felicity Kalumba Kalunga, who supported Sishuwa’s argument, charged that Zambians are burdening God with unnecessary additional responsibilities, tweeting “In what sense does the will of God prevail over plunder when he’s given us wisdom and the means to prevent and prosecute crime? I am afraid we are giving God too much work”

Others questioned if Zambians have any identity beyond religion. Sampa Kangwa wrote “[I] wonder what us Zambians would do if God rejected us for a month refusing anything to do with us including mentioning his name”, to which Sishuwa responded “We possibly would have neither identity nor voice for the whole duration of the suspension or rejection!”.

In Musoma region in Tanzania, a woman who has wealth (measured in cattle) but no husband or son who can look after her as she grows old, can take one or several young women as wives. Such a family is called “nyumba ntobhu”.

The practice is prevalent in western Tanzania. It is a traditional form of same-sex marriage. The two women share a bed as a couple, they live together, bear children in their union; they do everything a married couple would, except have sex.

In the Mara region, nyumba ntobhu allows older women to marry younger women in order to have children of their own and assist with the household chores. Women say nyumba ntobhu also helps them overcome problems of gender-based domestic violence.

It is also an alternative family structure for older women who do not have sons to inherit their property and whose daughters have moved away to their husbands’ villages. It offers a form of security for elderly women so they do not live on their own.

Mtongori Chacha (57), who is married to a woman, Gati Buraya (31), says the traditional practice arose as a result of male violence against women.

Chacha and Buraya have three children. Chacha says she decided to marry Buraya because she was unable to have children in her previous marriage to a man, who she says physically abused and tortured her.

To bear children, women who are married under nyumba ntobhu usually hire a man and pay him when the younger woman falls pregnant.

The hired man will also enter into an agreement with both women that he will not demand paternal rights to any children born out of the agreement.

The older woman is the guardian of the children and they usually take her surname.

Chacha says the man who impregnates the younger woman is paid with food or a goat.

In some rare cases, a man may return to claim a child, but Chacha says this can be avoided by choosing a man who is not known in the village or who is known to be irresponsible. These men are known as “street men”.

“I decided to run away from my marriage as I was humiliated and sometimes beaten nearly dead. At 45 I was not able to have children and I had to look for a new family to give me an heir to my property,” Chacha says while she feeds two of her children.

She says she could not accept the fact that she would die without children of her own. Her parents were rich and had many cattle so she chose to marry another woman who would give her children.

There are many faces to this kind of marriage especially in an area where early and forced marriages are prevalent and there are cases where poverty and greed have made minor girls victims.

THE ‘MARRIAGE’ CONTRACT

In this tribe an elderly woman without children will pay a bride price to the parents of a girl in order for a ‘marriage’ to take place between them. Under this kind of ‘marriage’ arrangement the girl is then said to be an ‘mkamwana’, meaning daughter in law, of the sonless woman. After a nyumba ntobhu marriage has taken place, the elder woman allocates a man, usually from her clan, to the ‘bride’ and children born of this relationship will belong to her. The children are referred to as the ‘grand children’ of the elderly woman and it is believed that nyumba ntobhu marriage brings social security to the elderly women in patriarchal Wakurya society. The marriages are contracted in a customary rite and wedding ceremonies and are sometimes very flamboyant with the childless woman paying the cost incurred for the ceremony.

Arranged marriages are part of the culture of Wakurya, the tribe is also unfortunately known to be notorious for wife beating. In a nyumba ntobhu marriage the ‘wife’ is used by the old woman for production and reproduction. She perform duties such as rearing cattle, milking cows, cleaning, growing food crops and harvesting crops.

CHILD MARRIAGE

Bertha Johannes, now 14, was only eight when she was forced to get married to an old woman who lives in Rorya District.

In the Kurya tribe, a woman can marry a girl to bear her children.

Narrating her story, Bertha, who completed Standard Seven in September 2013 at Mkiringo Primary School in Butiama District, says that she was forced to get married by her mother after the death of her father.

She says that her father died in 2006, leaving behind her mother and three other children. Then life became so difficult that they couldn’t afford their daily meals.

In 2008, her mother told her that she would be going to live with an old woman named Ghati Marwa in Rorya District.

“I didn’t know why my mother decided to send me away from my siblings,” says the teenager.

Bertha says that when she asked her mother what her decision meant, the answer was simple; the mother wanted to get cows from Ghati; which she badly needed to raise her children.

“I didn’t know that I was going to be someone’s wife; and the bad thing was that I was too young to get married no matter who I was to marry,” she narrated with tears in her eyes.

And when she finally arrived at Ghati’s home, the old woman told her that she was a married woman. She was thus supposed to obey her as her husband.

Bertha says that she experienced difficulties during her stay with the woman.

“Life was miserable, as most of the time Ghati was bringing home
different men of different ages to sleep with me,” she narrated.

Bertha says that the men would spend nights with her leaving her with little money that was to be surrendered to the old woman. Refusing to sleep with them was followed by a punishment.

“She brought different kinds of men of different ages to sleep with me, so that she could get money…due to my age, it was difficult to do that, so she would beat me up and chase me away,” she said adding; “Since I had nowhere to go, I would come back the following day.”

According to her, the situation continued for two years until her mother came to rescue her.

“She took me back home in 2010 after the intervention of Umati [a
Tanzanian family planning agency],” she narrated.

Her mother, Nyambura Johannes, 42, says that she decided to force her daughter into an early marriage due to the hardships she faced in raising her family after the death of her husband in 2006.

She said that she thought the option would help her address her
financial problems. Bertha’s mother said Ghati gave her four cows as dowry, but the cattle only increased her problems.

She said that she realised that her daughter was also facing
difficulties when she first visited her at her home. However, she had no means to rescue her until 2010 when the Umati team visited her village and decided to intervene and rescue her daughter.

FAR FROM LESBIAN MARRIAGE

Though nyumba ntobhu, is translated as ‘woman marrying woman’, it is quite different from Western lesbianism, which together with gay marriage, have been hotly debated in Africa.

A Canadian visitor to the region was surprised to learn it was not all it was made out to be by advocates of same sex marriage.

“I expected to see a young beauty romancing with an older woman the way it is done in the West, but what I have seen here is quite different from what I thought,” Canadian Steve Mulligan told The Citizen on Sunday Newspaper in remote Hekwe, one of the villages that widely observes same-sex marriage in Serengeti District.

Mr Mulligan said he couldn’t believe his ears when he found that same-sex marriage was not about romance and sex, rather an overwhelming need for children, especially boys, sought to inherit family properties and other businesses.

All People Congress Leader Mason Msoni says Zambians are fatigued by the unending corruption in President Edgar Lungu’s government.

Mr. Msoni says President Lungu’s lack of political will to help tackle corruption and his continued shielding of criminal suspects still serving in government has made the fight against graft extremely difficult for law enforcement officers.

He said the fight against corruption should not be left to law enforcement officers alone Zambia is to eradicate the vices and has asked Citizens to join the struggle against graft.

Mr. Msoni said corruption takes away money meant for the much needed social services and ends up in private pockets.

“In essence it is taxpayers money criminals are stealing with impunity and putting in their own pockets for personal use. We also think that the reckless abuse of public funds must now be curtailed by ensuring that those who have made it a habit to abuse public resources are brought to book”, he added.

Mr. Msoni said it is prudent to remind ourselves as citizens that we have the power to effect a citizens arrest or to apprehend any suspect found committing crimes against the people of Zambia.

He said it is now incumbent upon ourselves as citizens to join hands with law enforcement officers and help bring sanity to our country by volunteering to join the struggle against graft.

“We should all frown upon the corrupt and denounce perpetrators in the strongest terms as opposed to hero worshipping criminals and offering them support in droves when escorting them to court”, he added.

Mr. Msoni added that this attitude of giving criminals solidarity is tantamount to glorifying criminality and sending a wrong signal to other criminals still committing crimes in government.