NGOCC misguided over Bill of Rights

Sat, 11 Mar 2017 13:31:12 +0000

Dear Editor,

I genuinely believe it’s time to put the NGOCC chief  Sarah Longwe in her place. There is no money to hold another  referendum after last year’s failed attempt, President Edgar Lungu told the NGOCC following their request during the International Women’s Day commemoration (“No money for referendum – Lungu”, Daily Nation, March 9, 2017).

As NGOCC chairperson, the woman did nothing for the enhanced Bill of Rights referendum or to support the ‘YES’ vote referendum campaign championed by the PF during the 2016 general elections. Now she wants to pretend to be an expert on the Bill of Rights referendum.

Zambia has moved on, we neither believe in the UPND-biased NGOCC nor believe that the so-called international community has our interests at heart  We understand that in all that they do, they are merely motivated by a deep desire to promoting regime change. But PF is dismantling this desire, brick by brick. Perhaps Sarah Longwe would like to tell us how she stood, watch whilst the UPND president Hakainde Hichilema and his running mate Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba vigorously campaigned against the Bill of Rights referendum during the 2016 polls.

What happened to last year’s enhanced Bill of Rights referendum? Why was it held alongside the general elections? Was it not due to budget constraints? Who was behind the referendum’s failed attempt?  Why can’t those two UPND billionaires who campaigned against last year’s referendum finance it this time around? Or more precisely why not wait for them to form government before NGOCC asks for
another referendum?

Sarah Longwe owes it to the nation to tell us. It’s not enough to keep quiet, tell the nation madam, this is one area you are most
qualified to comment on.

All in all, I have a firm belief that the cause of NGOCC’s request for another Bill of Rights referendum, which has led to the President informing the nation that there’s no money to hold the referendum now, draws credible suspicion to Sarah Longwe’s true objectives.  In my assessment the NGOCC chief seems to be enjoying this spectacle which is obviously rooted in her own self-interest.

Her line of request that she is advocating for the enactment of the Bill of Rights in the amended Constitution of Zambia should be

disregarded so she can plainly be seen for the UPND sympathizer she really is – not a Bill of Rights fighter.

Mubanga Luchembe,

LUSAKA