Opinion / Columnist
Zambians: Who do you think you are?
16 Aug 2021 at 15:44hrs | Views
Dear Zambians,
What has gone wrong with you dear Zambians, curiously our neighbours north of us? Are you slipping over to those countries north of the Mediterranean and elsewhere who practice Greek democracy that is 2527 years old? Where did you get this Caucasian mentality that a sitting African President can be removed from power by the stroke of a pen? Do you realize this is un-African? How do you blindly follow virtues of an Athenian leader Cleisthenes who in year 507 before Christ was born, introduce reforms he called "democratia" a rule by the people? Back then, only men voted: women, slaves and children were excluded from voting. But on Friday, we saw, broad day light, even women, slaves, and the youth voted. Slaves in Zambia? Yes, there are slaves in Zambia working in mining sites and big farms belonging to Chinese nationals. Just like in Zimbabwe: in South Africa, globalist economies enslaves the black population.
President Lungu has declared this un-African practice null and void: he says there were "polls irregularities" in some polls stations. What has happened in 2021 Zambian elections has no precedence whatsoever in "Sub-Saharan" countries. There is no African-ness in the way the polls were conducted. Let us take this block by block: the turnout was enormous: over 75% of the population turned out to vote out a black president! What about the civilized aspect of waiting on the lines for hours to vote without chaos recorded by social media? In Lusaka and other towns and cities, there were no incidences of violence. Who disciplined Zambians to conduct themselves in this manner?
On Saturday, opposition leader Hichilema started gaining ground, led in the vote counting, he told his supporters to be calm and wait for the results to be declared by the chairman of the electoral board: indeed the voters were calm; they conducted themselves in a manner unheard of in African politics. Did President Edgar Lungu not set army deployment a week before the election date, a replication of what happened in South Africa, a SADC nation that set loose its army to cow down revolting citizens? Lungu shut down internet, twitter, and Facebook: rightfully he thought that Zambians learnt wrong practices from the Arab Spring how social media can successfully be used in campaigning for elections.
It appears as if the army disobeyed the sitting president: they did not shoot the citizens at their backs just like what happened on the first of August 2018 in Zimbabwe: civilians were shot down like flies when they demanded the immediate release of elections to avoid rigging. It is worth comment that rigging could not have taken place on Saturdays Zambia's elections stations: they were supervised, well-guarded by interested parties concerned. Watching the Zambian elections from afar, I was overwhelmed with green envy: such vigilance in polling stations was lacking in Zimbabwean polls in 2018: If that vigilance took place in Zimbabwean 2018 elections, we would be talking about a different story altogether: if Chamisa's MDC-Alliance matched this Zambian vigilance.
I cannot say it was rocket science what happened in Zambia yesterday: an election event that has sent shock waves in SADC region and "Sub-Sahara" Africa. Not very long ago, the Malawi opposition went to court to contest the presidential results. The constitutional courts nullified the presidential vote citing widespread and declared the opposition to be the rightful winner of the contested polls: That is not African standards we know. We know our courts to be captured, working on behalf of incumbent regimes. An average mind cannot comprehend fast events happening in this SADC region nawadays.
It would appear this earthquake trend is gaining traction. The entire southern African is at a risk of losing its African-ness and are slowly adopting the Athenian democracy where an African leader can be challenged through the ballot and win elections. Are we to imagine a peaceful transfer of power from President Lungu to President elect Hichilema? The political scientist: Jonathan Moyo taught us that: "a pen can never be mightier than a gun" in this region of Africa: we believed him. But just next door to Zimbabwe, Zambia has shown us with eloquence that what was not possible is now possible when enough is enough.
Would Zambians not have waited for Professor PLO Lumumba who promised us to rewrite democracy to suit Africans, for Africans by African with Africans. The Professor has hardly filled his fountain pen with ink: Zambians are flouting African values about Africans and Africa. We need to tell Zambians that South Africa has just realized that it is an African country after all. A former President disobeys the constitution he promised to uphold. There are rules and laws for Zuma and those for us semi-humans and lesser mortals. That is wholly African. His incarceration set the country in chaos. The Shona adage, Ku rova imbga wakaviga mupini. The black South Africans rudely reminded ANC ruling class that South Africa is an African continent after all.
It is increasingly challenging to know how the winds of change will play out in southern Africa after the Zambian landslide elections. Zimbabwe is segmented in fresh conflicts of South Africa, Eswatini, Mozambique: The democratic takeover of power in Zambia and the violent actions in South Africa are incidences and rude awakenings of what is to come in Zimbabwe. The peoples of Zimbabwe will not want to wait for the opposition to shape up and ask them to demand on their behalf what belongs to them. The situation in Zimbabwe is dangerously pregnant with opportunities and disasters ahead of it. What is to come is as inevitable as day following the night. Politics being what it is, cannot speculate accurately what will happen.
Reading Hichilema's painful CV, he is a Christian, an Adventist. He speaks much about truth and reconciliation. Institutions in Zambia will all be revisited: he said. His bitter incarcerations at the hands of President Lungu were sub-human, it is not easy to read some incidences and events he was subjected to the past 16 years as an opposition politician to the end. His virtues are enviable: are to be emulated by the younger generations and those to come. Hichilema will be able to teach Adventists of the moulds of Senator Khaliphani Phugheni about Christian values and principles. "Senator" Phugheni lacks the fundamentals of his Christian values: going to bed with Zanu is not politics but the dirtiness of it. To continue to salute criminals as: "His Excellency" removes all dignity in Khaliphani Phugheni and his Christian faith and conviction in its entirety is found wanting.
I wish you Zambians the best in reconstructing the nation from the shadow of itself to a promising future of generations for generations. In Hichilema it is possible to identify some Kagame in him. I am sure what he promised the young Zambian people he will be able to deliver. Zambia is not a poor country but very rich: With those riches of land, water, natural resources, let the Zambians benefit from their own natural resources that rightfully belong to them and not the Chinese citizens.
Tiyende pamodzi nemutima umo!
Salute!
Nomazulu Thata
What has gone wrong with you dear Zambians, curiously our neighbours north of us? Are you slipping over to those countries north of the Mediterranean and elsewhere who practice Greek democracy that is 2527 years old? Where did you get this Caucasian mentality that a sitting African President can be removed from power by the stroke of a pen? Do you realize this is un-African? How do you blindly follow virtues of an Athenian leader Cleisthenes who in year 507 before Christ was born, introduce reforms he called "democratia" a rule by the people? Back then, only men voted: women, slaves and children were excluded from voting. But on Friday, we saw, broad day light, even women, slaves, and the youth voted. Slaves in Zambia? Yes, there are slaves in Zambia working in mining sites and big farms belonging to Chinese nationals. Just like in Zimbabwe: in South Africa, globalist economies enslaves the black population.
President Lungu has declared this un-African practice null and void: he says there were "polls irregularities" in some polls stations. What has happened in 2021 Zambian elections has no precedence whatsoever in "Sub-Saharan" countries. There is no African-ness in the way the polls were conducted. Let us take this block by block: the turnout was enormous: over 75% of the population turned out to vote out a black president! What about the civilized aspect of waiting on the lines for hours to vote without chaos recorded by social media? In Lusaka and other towns and cities, there were no incidences of violence. Who disciplined Zambians to conduct themselves in this manner?
On Saturday, opposition leader Hichilema started gaining ground, led in the vote counting, he told his supporters to be calm and wait for the results to be declared by the chairman of the electoral board: indeed the voters were calm; they conducted themselves in a manner unheard of in African politics. Did President Edgar Lungu not set army deployment a week before the election date, a replication of what happened in South Africa, a SADC nation that set loose its army to cow down revolting citizens? Lungu shut down internet, twitter, and Facebook: rightfully he thought that Zambians learnt wrong practices from the Arab Spring how social media can successfully be used in campaigning for elections.
It appears as if the army disobeyed the sitting president: they did not shoot the citizens at their backs just like what happened on the first of August 2018 in Zimbabwe: civilians were shot down like flies when they demanded the immediate release of elections to avoid rigging. It is worth comment that rigging could not have taken place on Saturdays Zambia's elections stations: they were supervised, well-guarded by interested parties concerned. Watching the Zambian elections from afar, I was overwhelmed with green envy: such vigilance in polling stations was lacking in Zimbabwean polls in 2018: If that vigilance took place in Zimbabwean 2018 elections, we would be talking about a different story altogether: if Chamisa's MDC-Alliance matched this Zambian vigilance.
It would appear this earthquake trend is gaining traction. The entire southern African is at a risk of losing its African-ness and are slowly adopting the Athenian democracy where an African leader can be challenged through the ballot and win elections. Are we to imagine a peaceful transfer of power from President Lungu to President elect Hichilema? The political scientist: Jonathan Moyo taught us that: "a pen can never be mightier than a gun" in this region of Africa: we believed him. But just next door to Zimbabwe, Zambia has shown us with eloquence that what was not possible is now possible when enough is enough.
Would Zambians not have waited for Professor PLO Lumumba who promised us to rewrite democracy to suit Africans, for Africans by African with Africans. The Professor has hardly filled his fountain pen with ink: Zambians are flouting African values about Africans and Africa. We need to tell Zambians that South Africa has just realized that it is an African country after all. A former President disobeys the constitution he promised to uphold. There are rules and laws for Zuma and those for us semi-humans and lesser mortals. That is wholly African. His incarceration set the country in chaos. The Shona adage, Ku rova imbga wakaviga mupini. The black South Africans rudely reminded ANC ruling class that South Africa is an African continent after all.
It is increasingly challenging to know how the winds of change will play out in southern Africa after the Zambian landslide elections. Zimbabwe is segmented in fresh conflicts of South Africa, Eswatini, Mozambique: The democratic takeover of power in Zambia and the violent actions in South Africa are incidences and rude awakenings of what is to come in Zimbabwe. The peoples of Zimbabwe will not want to wait for the opposition to shape up and ask them to demand on their behalf what belongs to them. The situation in Zimbabwe is dangerously pregnant with opportunities and disasters ahead of it. What is to come is as inevitable as day following the night. Politics being what it is, cannot speculate accurately what will happen.
Reading Hichilema's painful CV, he is a Christian, an Adventist. He speaks much about truth and reconciliation. Institutions in Zambia will all be revisited: he said. His bitter incarcerations at the hands of President Lungu were sub-human, it is not easy to read some incidences and events he was subjected to the past 16 years as an opposition politician to the end. His virtues are enviable: are to be emulated by the younger generations and those to come. Hichilema will be able to teach Adventists of the moulds of Senator Khaliphani Phugheni about Christian values and principles. "Senator" Phugheni lacks the fundamentals of his Christian values: going to bed with Zanu is not politics but the dirtiness of it. To continue to salute criminals as: "His Excellency" removes all dignity in Khaliphani Phugheni and his Christian faith and conviction in its entirety is found wanting.
I wish you Zambians the best in reconstructing the nation from the shadow of itself to a promising future of generations for generations. In Hichilema it is possible to identify some Kagame in him. I am sure what he promised the young Zambian people he will be able to deliver. Zambia is not a poor country but very rich: With those riches of land, water, natural resources, let the Zambians benefit from their own natural resources that rightfully belong to them and not the Chinese citizens.
Tiyende pamodzi nemutima umo!
Salute!
Nomazulu Thata
Source - Nomazulu Thata
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