Tue, 25 Apr 2017 10:44:01 +0000
By ANNIE ZULU
SOME traditional leaders in Southern Province should stop embarrassing themselves by behaving like political party cadres and tribalists, Zambia Republic Party (ZRP) president Wright Musoma has said.
Mr Musoma said he was disappointed with the way some chiefs in Southern Province had been conducting themselves since the arrest of UPND Hakainde Hichilema.
He charged that some Chiefs had been spotted openly lobbying for the release of Mr Hichilema when they knew very well that he had committed serious offences.
“Some chiefs from Southern Province are embarrassing themselves with the way they are behaving, recently they had a press conference at HH’s house where they were demanding that HH should be released. Where were they when HH was committing those crimes?
“HH has been committing a lot of crimes after the 2016 general elections and none of them came out in the open to condemn him or sit him down. Now that he has been arrested, they want to support him,” said Mr Musoma
He said the chiefs should learn from counterparts in other Provinces.
When President Chiluba was unjustly hunted down, Chiefs in Luapula restrained themselves under very trying circumstance and they never did what these South chiefs were doing.
“When Rupiah Banda was arrested, we never saw Chiefs in Eastern Province behaving tribal,” Mr Musoma said.
He cautioned the chiefs to refrain from being political and tribal over the arrest of the UPND leader, stressing that many Zambians were slowly losing the respect they had for the Chiefs.
“The Chiefs should not continue to embarrass themselves, we are warning them not to indulge in things they do not know. We have respect them, but if they reduce themselves to the level of political cadres, we are going to treat them as such,” he said.
And Mr Musoma has reiterated that President Edgar Lungu had nothing to do with the arrest of Mr Hichilema.
He said it was not fair and sensible for some chiefs to continue accusing President Lungu over the arrest of the opposition leader.
