AFTER all the drama, and detention without charge, Mr Bowman Lusambo has been charged for concealing ownership of 14 properties and not the 49 properties as earlier reported.
Somehow, somebody at the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) leaked the information that Mr Lusambo was being investigated for 49 houses. Whoever did this knew for a fact that this was patently and utterly untrue and was simply meant to dramatise and add some gravitas to the ACC investigation.
This fits into a pattern.
We are therefore not surprised that after all the drama former Presidential spokesperson Amos Chanda is caught in a web of deceit intended to injure his reputation.
We do not expect any less drama when Lumezi Member of Parliament Munir Zulu who has accused the ACC of corruption appears before the Commission which has summoned him.
He has been asked to report on Friday, with the clear expectation that he will be held in detention until Monday or Tuesday, to exact extra judicial retribution for his utterances.
This is an abuse of authority which we have now come to expect and accept.
Somehow, Zambians love these self-deprecating macabre assertions of massive plunder and pillage, which usually have no foundation in reality.
It all started with the Mwanawasa campaign in which wild and incredulous allegations of abuse of authority were made, against second republican President Frederick Chiluba.
The charges spluttered, whimpered and fizzled out but not before individuals were maligned and permanently injured.
President Chiluba was publicly humiliated through more than seven years of persecution in our courts of law only to be acquitted, but the damage was done, the court of public opinion is fickle.
The same people who dragged Dr. Chiluba through the mud, are likely to be the same people behind the current drama, and the worst part of the charade is the involvement of such characters as British Lawyer Olive Sullivan, who we understand is involved in some arbitration matters.
Clearly we have not learnt the lesson. Therefore in matters of litigation, we will continue to bleed millions in hard currency to reinforce the notion that Zambia is among one of the most corrupt countries in the world, when we are not.
We prefer to play to the gallery, detaining Mr Lusambo for four houses, when people have been reported to have committed worse transgressions which the ACC has failed to investigate and prosecute, we are talking of billions of dollars.
The picture of Mr Lusambo, the whole former Lusaka Province Minister being handcuffed and hauled to police cells even before the ACC could charge him will continue to play in the minds of the Zambian people.
The intention was clearly designed to not only humiliate but also intimidate him and drive the narrative of rampant corruption. This, we feel was an abuse of authority on the part of the ACC.
They wanted to convict him in the court of public opinion instead of the courts of law.
This has been the pattern and will continue to be so, until this vicious cycle is brought to a stop.
The current UPND regime should be under no illusion that the same ACC operative playing to the gallery will do that after the 2026 elections when they will want to investigate the single sourcing of Alpha fertiliser and indeed the award of $1.8 million per kilometreroads which Government has seemingly awarded.
The adage that one is innocent until convicted in a court of law no longer applies in the eyes of the investigative wings and this is what is worrying the nation.
Government must not turn a blind eye to the malicious abuse of the law by the investigative wings for it is sending a wrong signal not only in the nation but to the international community.
These wings are doing everything possible to reinforce the notion that everything PF was corrupt and criminal. They will do the same when the UPND leave office.
No one is saying those suspected cases of corruption should not be investigated. But it raises a lot of questions when the law enforcement agencies play to the gallery instead of following the law.
