Dear Editor
‘’The problem Mr. Hichilema is now having is the fact that he wants to cheat, to mislead, to show that he is what he is not’’ late President Levy Mwanawasa said of HH in his memoirs. Mwanawasa was spot on HH because it is an open secret that HH is an egocentric loner with an overinflated sense of self worth who has no regard for other people’s lives or interests.
Last year on the 24th of March, six (6) days after Zambia recorded its first cases of Covid-19, HH called for a total lockdown of the Country as if he had the executive powers to do, he even went as far as paying for air space on Hot fm and other radio stations so that his recorded brief broadcast statement of demanding for a total lockdown could be heard by the entire nation.
HH’s motive behind the calling for the total lockdown was that the economy collapses and the Zambians suffer so that he could benefit politically from the situation but I thank God that President Edgar Lungu never paid attention to HH’s cruel demands and continued basing his judgements on scientific evidence. How President continues to guide the nation during this time of the pandemic is commendable. He has exhibited able stewardship.
What I find more confusing with HH’s modus operandi is that he called for a total lockdown when the Country had only three (3) confirmed cases of Covid-19 with the first being a couple that had travelled to France and came back to Lusaka aboard an Emirates flight, while the third confirmed case was a Lusaka-based businessman who returned from a business trip to Pakistan. It is worth noting that we didn’t have any deaths yet when he was calling for a total lockdown but now that we have a total of 93,947 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 1,275 deaths, HH and the UPND want to go ahead with holding rallies which will be super spreader events just because they want to benefit politically. At the risk of sounding monotonous, allow me to re-emphasize my point that HH is an egocentric loner.
His logic of wanting to hold super spreader events just because he wants to benefit politically from them when as a nation we are anticipating a third wave having already reported cases of the much deadlier Indian variant is absurd to say the least. For once can HH put the interest of zambians before his?
Wiseman Tembo:
Allow me to jog your memories that this is the same man that never leaves his mansion to go to radio stations and have radio interviews. Instead, he invites radio stations to his home to interview him in the comfort of his mansion because he is scared of the virus and does not want to risk his life. This is also the same man that went to Mulugushi Conference center to file in his nominations wearing surgical gloves because he knows that Covid is real but why is he now trying to flirt with the deadly virus by insisting on holding super spreader events?
I would like to take this moment to appeal to HH’s conscience and ask him to put innocent lives of Zambians he wants to risk into consideration because no life is worth risking for his individual political benefits. There are many safer ways of conducting campaigns and no one is against him campaigning like he wants people to believe. We are just asking him not to risk sacrifice innocent lives. We are still in the new normal and Covid-19 is still our common enemy.
