Has the bedroom flipped from red Sheets to blue blankets? Op-ed
…the Solwezi & Mundubile phenomenon
AM-29th July 26
I drove into Solwezi like a reluctant prophet, dust swirling around my convoy as if the town itself was coughing up its poverty to greet us.
Horns honked, drums beat, and suddenly this mineral-rich but poverty misery-soaked town looked less like a ruling party fortress and more like a carnival of blue flags.
Suddenly Brian Mundubile’s name was on the lips of everyone here. What happened?
Four years ago, Solwezi was the “honeymoon suite” of the ruling UPND under President HH.
Today, influential politician Teddy Kansonso declared with glee that the so-called “UPND bedroom” was no longer occupied by president HH’s pillows but had been handed over to brother Brian Mundubile, the ‘new boy’ in town and Makebi Zulu?
Thousands roared and agreed with Kasonso in Solwezi.
THE BEDROOM IS NOW YOURS
“The bedroom is now yours, President Mundubile,” he shouted, and the crowd roared like wedding guests drunk on plonk and weed.
The BM8 movement rolled in like rockstars, Mundubile and Makebi Zulu waving to the masses who had turned the town square into a stadium.
Of course the opposition ruling reds tried but failed to stop the locals with their new found love called Brian and Makebi. The dice was loaded from the start in this poverty stricken mineral rich town.
WHAT IS BRIAN AND MAKEBI PROMISING NOW?
Their promises were simple, sharp, and repeated like a chorus: jobs for the youth, shared value for women, poverty reduced without compromise
“The opposition is the people, not Brian Mundubile, not Makebi Zulu,” Mundubile thundered. “If you fail to change the people’s lives, the people will change the government.”
And the crowd, bigger than Chingola’s, agreed with their feet, their voices, their dust.
But satire writes itself in Solwezi. Here, mining towns are home to earth-moving machinery that digs fortunes for others while the owners eat dust and die poor.
The irony is so thick you could mine it too. Mundubile, with his pot belly and bald head shining like a beacon, told the crowd: “We want investors, but we also want ‘shared value’ for you youths and women.”
The people cheered, not because they believed every word, but because they had grown tired of promises that evaporated like morning dew.
The ruling party’s incumbency had lost its shine according to analysts, its ‘honeymoon turned into a divorce court’.
President Hichilema himself, once the darling of the people here, now caught on camera using words that analysts say “do not fit into the state of affairs of a President.”
Mundubile’s caution was sharp: “Mr. President, mind your language. A leader’s tongue can build or burn a nation.”
Driving along Solwezi’s bumpy, unnavigable roads, I wondered aloud: where does the next stop reach us, were does the money from copper go? Another bedroom? Another bed-mate? History is littered with melted thrones.
In medieval Europe, kings who promised bread but delivered famine were dethroned by mobs with pitch-forks.
In Africa, Mobutu’s golden palace Gbadolite, crumbled while his people starved, proof that power without delivery is a candle in the wind.
As the Latin proverb goes: “Fiat justitia ruat caelum” — let justice be done though the heavens fall.
So what has blown Brian Mundubile out of the water about two weeks away from the polls in Zambia? Is it his pot-belly? His bald head? Or his simplicity?
The answer, dripping with satire, is all three. His pot-belly says he eats; he wants others fed, his bald-head says he shines, and his simplicity says he might just deliver.
And in Solwezi, that is enough to make the people laugh, cry, and hope again. Is that why they turned up into astronomical numbers?
The Bookmakers say the 13th August poll is a two-horse between Brian Mundubile and Hakainde Hichilema. Southern Province & Western Province, Mundubile, cometh, my pen scrolls on.
Amb. Anthony Mukwita, Author & International Relations Analyst in Solwezi
Smart Eagles KBN TV Daily Nation Zambia Daily Revelation Newspaper
Mukwita.a self deluded drunkard cannot distinguish between political commitment and mass hesteria.I sometimes live in Solwezi and I can attest to you that North westerners have embraced the lifestyle of the Southerners and have welcomed him and his love for farming together with his red politics.
It would take more than a blue convoy of strange vehicles promising heaven on earth to turn them.The miners of the region distaste what he says about them
Solwezi went back to normal immediately Mundubile and Makebi left town