By Anthony Bwalya – UPND Member
For the record, the regime should either present Spax before the courts or release him.
This is the arbitrary application of the law we have always condemned. The same brutality they applied against Mr. Hakainde Hichilema is the same brutality they are applying against Kabaso Mulenga.
I have a lot of sympathies for Kabaso SPAX Mulenga. I also have a lot of sympathies for many intelligent, enterprising, hardworking young men like him, who push the boundaries of limitations to build a life for themselves and their families.
For the record, Spax and many youths like him are victims of the brutality of the failed leadership of the Patriotic Front. The PF always knew, that youths on the Copperbelt were always going to demand a fair share of the spoils of the earth in that region, and that they were never going to stand and watch corrupt government politicians plunder our national resources while they continued begging for handouts.
That is how they demanded for the #BlackMountain to be given to them, even without the most basic legal protections.
Spax and the youths on the Copperbelt, Chingola and Kitwe to be specific, knew, that because of their appetite for corruption, the PF leadership would always play ball over the Black Mountain.
If the PF had not given Spax and the youths on the Copperbelt, permission to work with the Black Mountain, these youths by now, could have erupted and demanded for their removal from power. These youths could never have stood by and watched the plunder of national resources by PF officials while they got nothing.
In other words, Black Mountain was a bribe to keep the youths silent as government officials stole on a grand scale.
The PF cannot remain in power without the support of Spax and his team. And they know it.
Except now, the PF have amassed too much money from numerous acts of grand, politically motivated corruption, that they now think they can dispense with Spax and the “Jerabos” on the Copperbelt.
This is why the regime can now afford to arrest and detain Spax. The PF do not feel they need Spax anymore.
In the months ahead, the regime, in an attempt to strengthen it’s grip on power, will try and neutralize the command of people like Spax and his team.
But this will also give the youths on the Copperbelt, an opportunity to see that they have been used and played by the regime.
There are members of the regime who want a piece of the Black Mountain. But before they can lay their hands on it, they must first neutralize Spax.
The problem here is not Spax. The problem is the regime.