By OLIVER SAMBOKO
THE missing Hatembo siblings Pheluna and Milton are being harboured at UPND president Hakainde Hichilema’s house, FDD president Edith Nawakwi has claimed.
But Mr Hichilema, through his spokesperson Anthony Bwalya said Ms Nawakwi’s unhinged, angry and unfounded allegations against him are rooted in self-interest and vindictive self-righteousness.
He said the Kalomo farm issue is a 17-year-old issue, backed by valid transaction documents and already ruled on by the courts.
The FDD leader who called in during a Hot FM breakfast show, accused Mr Hichilema of abducting the Hatembo siblings to stop them appealing against the High Court ruling involving farm number 1924 in Kalomo.
Ms Nawakwi, who said the missing Pheluna and Milton Hatembo are being kept at Mr Hichilema’s house challenged him to go with her at Lusaka Central Police Station to clear his name if he was innocent.
Ms Nawakwi warned that Zambians should not trust Mr Hichilema with the position of head of State because he could easily abuse it.
She disclosed that she received an emotional text message from Pheluna’s child complaining that “No one understands how it feels to be Pheluna’s child. It hurts and it’s hard our mother is not here.”
She noted that the people who have so far been arrested by the Police in the criminal act of the kidnapping and abducting the two siblings were mere surrogates of Mr Hichilema, adding that they are all UPND members hailing from Southern Province.
Ms. Nawakwi has challenged Mr. Hichilema to come out clean over the Hatembos’ abduction scandal and has since challenged the church, in particular the SDA, to pray hard so that Mr. Hichilema can release the Hatembos.
But Mr Hichilema said hers is not a cause for justice but political grandstanding aimed at derailing his focus and attention on key issues facing the Zambian people.
“Citizens have not forgotten how she had been making noise about privatisation in a quest to defame me, and now that her and her accomplices have failed to prove any impropriety on my part, they have now resorted to abusing the Hatembos as a way to get paid by the PF.”
