Tue, 28 Feb 2017 10:25:21 +0000
By NATION REPORTER
Bemba chiefs have challenged opposition UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema to justify his stubborn insistence that President Edgar Lungu was not duly elected when the law and the majority of the Zambian people have accepted this reality.
Leading the charge Chief Nsamba said that it was incomprehensible that HH could promote an illegality in rejecting a duly elected President while at the same time pursue litigation to overturn the outcome of an election that was accepted as being valid by among others the church, international and local observers.
Another Chief has challenged HH to justify his insistence on rejecting Mr. Lungu supposedly elected from an “ethnic” party when the same people had supported the father of Zambian politics Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula, who started his political career in Mufulira and was supported by all tribes.
“Nkumbula enjoyed the support of all Zambians across tribal and regional divides because he stood for a cause that was representative of the wishes and interests of the Zambian people. This would not have been possible if his support came from the current UPND stronghold. “He said.
It was unfair, illegal and totally unjustified he said, for an opposition political leader to push his party into a patently ethnic agenda as evidenced by the voting pattern exhibited in the last elections “The suggestion that the three Provinces in which he won votes could dominate the majority of the provinces that voted otherwise is the height of arrogance which he must check.”
Meanwhile Zambian Republican Party President Wright Musoma has taken a swipe at Tonga Chief Chikanta who has blamed Government for the misfortunes that the Post newspaper was facing.
The law, he said, was visiting former Post newspaper proprietor Fred M’membe because he had broken the law with impunity.
Mr. Musoma said that Mr. M’membe and his allies should stay away from committing crime if they did not want to be pursued by the law saying the law was not selective and would visit any law breaker irrespective of whether one was a Patriotic Front or UPND member and no one should accuse President Edgar Lungu of carrying out a witch-hunt against Mr M’membe.
In an interview yesterday with the Daily Nation, the opposition leader said that Chief Chikanta was misguided on the matter saying that Mr. M’membe had been a crusader of ensuring that the law followed lawbreakers and questioned what had now changed and wondered whether the traditional leader was indirectly implying that tax evasion as well as hacking of innocent citizen’s handsets was not a crime.
He said that Chief Chikanta was talking like that to indirectly endorse the UPND leader and accused him of being a cadre but warned that he was bringing himself into “political mud” and that he would not be spared on his basis of being a chief.
“Is his Royal Highness Chief Chikanta trying to tell us that tax evasion is not a crime which M’membe committed through the Post newspaper and the hacking of people’s phones like he did to honourable Alexander Chikwanda a crime which he got away with?
“We know that when Chief Chikanta speaks like that he is indirectly campaigning for the UPND because he is behaving like a cadre. But we are not going to spare him if he brings himself in the political firing range,” Mr Musoma said.
He has advised Chief Chikanta to urge all Zambians to desist from engaging in any unlawful activities and that he not just pay attention on Mr. M’membe’s scenario alone and challenged the traditional leader to emulate other traditional leaders who were not meddling in political affairs.
Mr. Musoma said that it was necessary for the country to recover the colossal sums of money which Mr. M’membe had siphoned in form of tax evasion on behalf of all Zambians who he said were tax payers.
