Where has this culture of dispatching suspected offenders on the express highway to Hell by dousing them in petrol and setting them ablaze suddenly come from? I initially thought such grisly and macabre activities, absolutely perfect for a horror movie, were at least only imaginable in remote areas or shanty compounds where a number of our people may still be stuck in the quagmire of the ‘Stone Age’ way of looking at or resolving issues due to lack of knowledge. Little did I realise I was completely off tangent…..well, until a few days ago!

As the clock struck close to midnight, I was tossing and turning around in bed trying to summon some sleep when a piercing sound shrilled through the darkness and systematically drilled into my ears! My head immediately exploded in excruciating pain as I felt my sphincter muscles almost giving up…….Of course, it would be a misnomer for readers to conclude this writer is a weakling given to easily yielding to simple ailments which would compel him scuttling to the loo any how! I must confess I had been confined to the safe parameters of my bedroom for the past two days due to a combination of a splitting headache and running stomach.

Anyway, not to bore you with tales of our sudden indisposition these last few days, I groped for my cheap Chinese handset as I dashed to the bathroom. Quite obviously, my wife wouldn’t take kindly to my succumbing to the indiscretion of emptying the contents of my bowels on our matrimonial bed; well if at all there was still anything remaining inside of me given my recent frequent visitations to the bathroom.

“Folks from the neighbourhood have captured a suspected thief from our garage….” the voice on the other end of the line intoned, frantically. “They’re now threatening to set him ablaze……”

“Have you informed the police?” panick begun to set in, furiously.

“We’ve already done that!” the voice of our guard faltered. “They’ve now forced him on the ground and put tyres on him; and someone has already gone to fetch petrol and matches…..”

Say what!

I frantically searched for whatever contact I could call for help in my phonebook. Fortunately, one of my friends was within the vicinity. He responded to my ‘SOS’ with the fire brigade approach. He arrived at the scene just as someone was about to strike the match stick.

“Why are you delaying to start the fire?” Someone argued. “We’ve to teach this goon a lesson, the Mumbwa way!”

A while ago, Mumbwa residents; hitherto a backwater rural enclave West of the country known for farming, ran amok burning and looting property when rumour mills came alight with captivating anecdotes that a local business tycoon and his foreign counterpart were behind the gruesome killings which had resulted in private parts being dismembered from the corpses – sets if you like! Matters came to a head when the mob finally got hold of the suspected culprits. They wasted no time emptying containers of fuel on them and torching them. Ouch!

We were just minutes away from recording yet another mindless loss of life at the hands of an irate mob.

Apparently, someone from the neighbourhood had requested to secure their goat in our garage for the night to prevent it from being mauled by their vicious dogs. They planned to slaughter it for some festivities the following day. At a certain interval, they sent their nephew – a visitor from the village, to check on the goat. Their invited guests would be absolutely disappointed if the promised mouth-watering goat meat wasn’t part of the menu. True to their worst fears, the young man couldn’t find the goat where he had secured it on a leash; he was obviously unsettled. He started turning things around like crazy as he searched for the goat.

Drawn to the commotion in the garage at that awkward hour when everyone should be home, some alert neighbours decided to raise alarm.

“Kabolala! Kabolala! Kabolala!” They screamed in unison.

Some youths immediately mobilised themselves and stormed the garage armed with all manner of weapons – catapults, pangas, slashers and axes! The menacing mob cornered the lad before he could take flight. None of them could ould buy the story that he found himself there to find a goat! They were determined to unleash mob justice on him to send a signal to would-be offenders that indeed the area was a “No Go Zone” after after a spate of thefts that rocked the area not so long ago.

“Have you seen any goats in here?” they taunted him. “You think we’re dimwits; since when did a garage become a kraal?”

They violently dragged him outside as heavy blows continued raining on him in rapid successions.

They had just tackled him to the ground on the middle of the road and begun piling tyres and any scrap material they could salvage, on him, when my colleague suddenly pitched up.

“Wait a minute!” he pleaded.

As if on cue, the goat equally bleated and dramatically trotted from underneath one of the benches where it had taken refuge.

Prince Bill M. Kaping’a
Political/Social Analyst

By Edward Chisanga

Just as The Great Wall of China is no longer the basis of Chinese tourism, Zambia too much adapt and create new tourist products or make amendments to existing ones. We must study the behavior of international tourists and find out exactly what motivates them. Often, the perception of African and Zambian leaders, is that they will come to see our Victoria Falls, one of the wonders of the world and game or wild animals. In the product life cycle, Victoria falls, like other God-given natural things is a declining product.

We can no longer base the planning and development of tourism on the Victoria falls. God-created resources like Victoria falls are of course important and can earn us wealth. But they’re not sustainable. After some years, they lose their meaning and may even become relics and obsolete. Just like human beings, products like Victoria falls eventually reach the declining stage and need rebirth or improvement.
Let’s stop celebrating winning small economic wars. Victoria falls and what the country earns from it is what I consider small economic wars. We don’t earn much because the product is incomplete. To win big economic war means making Victoria falls, including where it sits more beautiful than it is today.
China no longer uses the Great Wall as its main tourism products. What you saw and impressed you most from the visit to China was not the Great Wall or other God-given resources. It was the cities of Beijing, Shenzhen, Jinggangshan, etc that captured your complete attention. You saw many more visitors to these cities than you would have seen if you had visited the Great Wall.

White people like visiting nice-looking and safe cities. Many Americans and Europeans visit Chinese cities perhaps much more than they do their own cities because of beauty and what they offer. Look at their flowers and trees in the streets, parks, playgrounds, and gardens. In these cities, dust was last seen by builders of the cities. Children born thereafter have never seen dust in their lives.
They visit these cities because they’ve all the necessary facilities that any civilized country provides. As they walk on the streets, drink, and enjoy themselves, they will need to go to the toilets. They easily have access to clean and affordable public toilets in the streets. They find abundant and quality food, drinks, and things. Hotels are abundant and affordable, clean and their attendants friendly. Pickpockets and other thieves are kept under strict control.

These cities offer limitless and continuous energy and electricity to their tourists. They know nothing about load shedding and electricity going off. Tourists visiting them know nothing about it either. You never experienced it too, did you?

If you signed a memorandum of understanding on tourism, we know what product you’re focusing on. There’s nothing else other than Victoria falls. Oh, sorry, you’ve got wildlife or game. That’s another declining product. You cannot keep on promoting God-given things which have no value-addition and expect to create big wealth. Game too is a simple economic war that you are fighting. Learn to fight big economic wars.

In Zambia’s Livingstone, these tourists you saw in China and yourselves will have no access to good city facilities. Livingston is not a tourist city. Perhaps to you, not to me. We are simply lucky we have Victoria falls in it which attracts few tourists. It runs out of energy and electricity like other cities in the country. And tourists are not exempted from this mess.
We ask them to come, and they come only to be subjected to things we used to hear about the dark continent when we were children, and sixty years on, after independence, we are about to die leaving them. Where do tourists go to empty their bladders and …when they’re in Livingston streets outside their hotels?

When they want to phone their relatives abroad, they’re confronted with network challenges they never experience in their towns. They can’t buy this and that because our shops have network challenges.
Beggars are everywhere encircling them. Street kids have their own plans to get to tourists to beg. The hired tourist driver collecting them from the airport and taking them back has his own agenda to ensure they give him something. Hotel workers attending to them give them the “I’m hungry look.” If they carelessly leave important articles, items, money, etc in their rooms, in other places, they may not find them.

To win large economic wars means that we must address all these problems which we don’t tell them. We only tell them sweetness. The basis of good tourism that can create big wealth for our people, is to ensure that we eradicate all these challenges. Don’t simply pick on me as a bad Zambian who lists bad things about our country as if I’m not Zambian. Do self-soul-searching. Look in the mirror with me. And, I have sympathy for the new dawn government becaeuse you’re new and did not create this mess. But take advantage and create more exciting things than the Victoria falls and game.

Make Livingston a real tourist town. Let tourists come to Livingston not only to see the Victoria falls but the town and its good things. It’s understandable that a poor country like ours cannot build good towns because we have no money. But perhaps the next budget should focus on ensuring that Livingston is beautiful and competitive in the region.

According to Zambian economists and government, debt restructuring will give us enough funds to spend on development. Upgrading Livingston to international standards may bring a multiplier effect on economic development. It’s a pity, when you were in China, you could have asked to visit some small town which you could use, ask China to help you expand Livingston into that model.

As I conclude, here’s a piece of advice. When you borrow, next time, perhaps borrow big to upgrade Livingston. It might sound reckless, but that borrowing might have a multiplier effect of benefits in the long-term. Another advice. Don’t ask tourists to come only to face these challenges. When they go back home, they’ll campaign against us, that we are liars who talk sweet and deceitful ‘stories. Another advice: Don’t give tourists what you perceive as a good product. Instead, adopt their perception.

Today’s Scripture

“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

Numbers 6:24–26, NIV

The Blessing

Friend, today, I declare that you are blessed with wisdom and that you make good choices in life. I declare you are blessed with courage, with strength, with great vision, with an obedient heart, and with a positive outlook. I declare you are blessed with good health, with vitality, and that you will live a long, satisfied life. I declare you are blessed with a good family, good friends, healthy relationships, and that your children will be mighty in the land. I declare you are blessed with protection. I declare you are blessed with promotion, with good success, with ideas, with creativity. I declare that whatever you put your hands to will prosper. You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. I declare you will lend and not borrow; you will be above and never beneath. I declare a new sense of freedom from whatever holds you back, a new happiness, and a new fulfillment. If you receive the blessing, say amen.

A Prayer for Today

“Father, thank You for setting me apart with Your distinctive blessing and for shining Your face upon me. Thank You for guiding me, protecting me, favoring me, and giving me an advantage. I believe that I am blessed to be one of Your own special people. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”