‘ECL SHOULD BE STRONG’

By NATION REPORTER

EDITH Nawakwi has warned that former President Edgar Lungu should be strong as he is facing an onslaught that is intended to lift his immunity from prosecution so that he can be humiliated arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned.

Ms Nawakwi has said there is no law in Zambia that stops the president of a political party, as Mr Lungu was from receiving donations and that the search of the raid of the former President’s bank accounts by the

And Ms Nawakwi, the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) president has said the UPND should know that the power they are enjoying is not permanent and that time shall come when the current leaders would have to account for his actions.

She said it was absurd that the State could accuse the former President of money laundering when Zambians knew that it was nothing but vengeance, retribution and political persecution.

The State has started raiding the bank accounts of former President Lungu, claiming that it believes the former Head of State could have committed money laundering crimes.

The Drug Enforcement Commission(DEC) has been instructed to search Mr Lungu’s bank accounts domiciled at Atlas Mara Bank in Lusaka, covering a period of 10 years, from 2012 to November this year.

But Ms Nawakwi has said there was no law in Zambia that required that a leader of a political party should declare the source of funding and that Mr Lungu, as a leader of the Patriotic Front (PF) at the time should never be held accountable for the donations he had received as leader of the former ruling party.

Ms Nawakwi, who is a former Minister of Finance said however that Mr Lungu should endeavour to be strong because the UPND administration would stop at nothing to have him arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned.

“We can only urge the former President to be strong because the UPND administration is determined to break every law in the book in a bid to strip the former President of his immunity from prosecution. We have people whose ego is larger than Zambia and until they see Mr Lungu in jail, they will not rest.

“Former President Lungu did things for God and he served his people. There is nothing Mr Lungu has done that will warrant Zambians to abandon him.”

“So these people in government are dismal failures and want to hide their incompetence in harassing and inconveniencing our former President,” Ms Nawakwi said.

And Ms Nawakwi said the UPND and its leadership should know that power was not permanent and the political persecution the governing party has launched against leaders of the former ruling party shall come to haunt them.

She said it was not normal for the State to accuse former President Lungu of money laundering when it was public knowledge that the UPND had received a lot of donations from their financiers.

She said it was illegal and a breach of the rule of law for the State to have commenced the prosecution of the former Head of State long before his immunity had been lifted.

Ms Nawakwi said if the UPND was a government of laws, it should have started the proceedings of lifting the immunity from prosecution of Mr Lungu instead of embarking on a political witch-hunt which was not only making Zambians angry but was dividing the country. She stated that every political party had the right to receive donations from their supporters and that the UPND like other political parties had been receiving donations but had never been asked to account.