In pursuit of excellence

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 10:11:05 +0000

For many years now our country has been mired in a culture of recrimination, skullduggery and outright deception by those who sought to create a national agenda.

They highlighted the worst in human nature and attempted to impose their kleptomaniac standard on all those attempting to make a positive contribution. Everybody was measured by their jaundiced perception. Corruption and plunder entered the national lexicon as they pillaged public resources.

This negativity fed into the culture on native politics thereby killing any notion of meritocracy. We wallowed in mediocrity because success was equated with graft.

Time has come for change.

We must change for the better. We must seek out the best from amongst ourselves; we must raise the bar of integrity and applaud those that make an effort to make a positive contribution to the nation.

We must regain our pride and propel our country to higher heights of attainment in science, technology, economics art and culture.

The one and most fundamental attainment of the third Republic was a change in the mindset of the Zambian people. The people were weaned from absolute dependence on Government there is one thing that the third Republic achieved for the Zambian people

We have a lot to be proud of, a lot to show to the rest of the world. Our appellation should change for the better to give hope, inspiration and courage to our young graduates and school going children that their future does not lie in street vending but in the pursuit of higher national goals.

Like Kenya we should invest in our own Silicon valley which will take our copper a stage further into the burgeoning electronics industry.

We must face our challenges afresh and bring to new blood into the fore.

Until now the same faces, the same ideas and therefore same bottlenecks are preventing the country break out of the Gordian knot.

This needs men and women of encourage and of impeccable character that will, as Pentecostal preachers say, stand in the breach to promote a new idealism based on excellence, virtue and enterprise.

These are men and women who should leap over native politics and more importantly over the generation gap to give Zambia a fresh start. We need a fresh start, a start that will be issue based rather than political domination at the expense of creative interparty dialogue.

There is no question that our country is need of healing and healing will not come from those who are already steeped in their ways of old.

It will come from the younger generation that has no allegiance to tribe or particular cultural orientation. These are the young hybrid Zambians who see Zambia a theater of opportunity and promise.

In this day and age the likes of Mr. Munkombwe and his ilk must give way to the younger generation which has new ideas, a new vision and most certainly a new hope for the country. Old  clan politics have no room in modern Zambia, which requires men who will appreciate virtue, enterprise and most of integrity.

The new Zambia will demand a professionalism that goes beyond the parochial but will instead challenge individual creativity, enterprise and foebearance to lift the country from i9ts quagmire.

We have the natural attributes and human resources to become Africa’s best.