Wynter’s betrayal

Fri, 17 Feb 2017 09:18:11 +0000

LISTENING to Rainbow Party president Wynter Kabimba rate the performance of Zambia’s republican presidents when he featured on Hot FM radio’s ‘‘Hot Seat’’ programme yesterday, one could not help but ask how honest his assessment has been.

It is particularly shocking that Mr Kabimba can now punch holes in the legacy of his late comrade and mentor President Michael Sata. How genuine is Mr Kabimba in his critique?

Mr Kabimba was one of the people who worked very closely with Mr Sata and whatever could have gone wrong between 2011 and 2014 he must share the blame.

Why did Wynter not resign on moral grounds if indeed he had become disillusioned at the manner President Sata was governing the nation?

Instead, he defiantly and fiercely defended Michael Sata’s style of governance and justified every action taken by Government at the time. According to Wynter there was nothing wrong with the style of governance. All was well.

Is Mr Kabimba being honest and objective in his analysis? Is Wynter making this negative confession because Sata embarrassingly dismissed him from Government?

It does not require one to be a political scientist really to decipher the dishonesty in Wynter Kabimba’s statement. Supposing Michael Sata did not dismiss him, could he have negatively criticised Sata’s reign? We do not think so.

What is interesting to note is that Wynter accuses his long-time comrade as having been progressively derailed from the track by personal favours, hence losing grip of the state machinery. Who contributed to Sata getting derailed and losing grip of State machinery? And who received the favours?

It is not fair for Wynter to impute that Sata lost grip of governance when it is well known that as a powerful PF secretary general then he accentuated holding Sata captive.

We think Wynter minced his words on how a group of disgruntled individuals have held governments to ransom over the years for selfish reasons.

It is plain truth that the cartel fought the late second republican president Frederick Chiluba because he did not give them an opportunity to manipulate the Government system. For this reason, some private media houses championed a vicious campaign to discredit and malign him.

When late president Levy Mwanawasa took over from Dr Chiluba, the cartel literally went beserk as they manipulated the system to suit their agenda. They influenced President Mwanawasa to set up a Task Force on Corruption which vehicle they used to settle political scores against their perceived enemies, starting with Dr. Chiluba.

The fight against corruption was literally hijacked from President Mwanawasa and the cartel used it to vilify certain individuals and amass wealth for themselves by manipulating the system. This is the time during which the cartel held a president captive, leading to non-payment of tax to government.

And when former president Rupiah Banda who succeeded Mwanawasa did not dance to their samba rattling, they ridiculed and painted him black.

The cartel, in their continued scheme to manipulate government, partnered with the then opposition political party to de-campaign Rupiah Banda and succeeded in installing Michael Sata as republican president.

Surely, this series of clandestine activities by the cartel should be well known to Wynter, and attacking Sata’s legacy now only acts as the worst form of betrayal, particularly that Michael Sata is dead and cannot defend himself.