CONFIGURE STATE HOUSE…so that HH is guided because he doesn’t learn – Kalaba
By Khloiwe Miti(The Mast)
WHY should we always be reminded about where we come from, it’s not necessary, says Citizens First leader Harry Kalaba.
He says State House itself needs to be configured right “so that the President is guided because the way he is coming out, he is coming out to be very tribal”.
Featuring on KBN TV’s The Breakfast Show on Wednesday, Kalaba said Zambians put confidence in him to take the country forward.
“I’m encouraging the President using this platform, let him heal the divide. That is why he got votes from Southern Province, that is why he got voted from the Northern Province, from Eastern Province, from North-Western Province. It’s because Zambians saw a leader in him and they said at a time such as this, we submit our confidence in you. We deposit our confidence in you but no, he wants to continue taking us back to a very bad past which we do not want to go to,” he said. “Why should we always be reminded about where we come from? It’s not necessary. He is my President; he is your President regardless of where I come from. Zambians chose him and they had their own reasons why they chose him. So he should not be telling us that people were happy because she is coming from a particular region or I’m coming from a particular region. From a president? Dr Kaunda would never allow that.”
Kalaba said there is need to have people who will guide President Hichilema as he is coming out “very tribal”.
He said President Hichilema is instead “the one promoting tribal politics”.
“That is why you know State House itself needs to be configured right. There was a guy called Amos Chanda who was the presidential aide. That guy was about the best thing that was happening around the former president [Edgar Lungu] and the PF. He would even pass notes when he sees his boss going off guard. He would pass a note quickly and say I think let’s divert from that topic. He would guide,” Kalaba said. “We need that kind of leadership within State House so that the President is guided because the way he is coming out, he is coming out to be very tribal. And on the other hand he sees others to be ones promoting tribal politics and yet his cheap talk is what is promoting tribal politics. The President should desist from that. I told the President and that was the last time he even called me, on a conversation I had with him where the President was trying to say ‘you think you have got this leadership thing on you, you have got a chip of leadership under your shoulder’. You can go and pick out conversation from ZICTA…’”
He said President Hichilema called him and “we discussed for more than one hour where he says ‘you feel because you are coming from the northern region you feel you have got a chip of leadership on your shoulders’”.
“Himself telling me that and I told the President, Sir, you are a president don’t talk like that. Don’t, sir, because the moment you talk to me a private citizen in that fashion you are making me feel isolated. Yours is to unite us. Yours is to bring us together. But he doesn’t learn, he goes ranting and talking about those things like a broken…,” Kalaba said. “How can you promote hate speech in some regions after you are already President? Over a period of being in power for almost three years and you are still talking about the past, which is not going to unite us, which is just going to divide us. How do you behave like that honestly? How do you behave like that? Instead of him focusing on substantial issues that whole four hours (press conference) he spent yapping and rapping and whatever he was saying he kept talking about the former ruling party. The President should have addressed himself to the escalating prices of mealie meal. He should have addressed himself on how government wants to deal with the issues of Mopani, [how] government was going to deal with issues of the rising cost of living. How they will deal with mealie meal prices. He didn’t do that. He spent time talking and hearing himself and praising himself.”
Kalaba said there is a problem between President Hichilema and his deputy Mutale Nalumango that needs to be addressed.
“When Collin Barry (former ZAF commander) was fired, Vice-President Nalumango called Barry and sympathised with him and it means that she is not agreeing with you as appointing authority. She is not agreeing with you. When a president refuses to explain in detail, that question you asked and instead chooses to humiliate his own Vice-President to defend herself, it shows you that there is a problem. The President and the Vice-President there is a problem. When the President starts to mistrust the Vice-President and wanting to hear what the Vice-President is saying, wanting to say or can I listen in what she is saying, can I know the movements of the Vice-President, then you know there is a problem. So clearly, that question you asked was very founded. There is a big problem between the President and the Vice-President and this is because the Vice-President has been neglected,” said Kalaba. “She has been thrown in the dustbin of politics. One of the conditions Joe Biden gave Barack Obama when he was being appointed as vice-president was that ‘I’m asking you to do two things for me if I’m to agree to be your vice-president’. He said one, ‘every week you and I will be having lunch together. Every week find a day you and I will be discussing national issues. The second issue that I would want you to help me with if I’m going to be your vice-president is that whenever you are making critical decisions you will consult me as well’ and Obama agreed. And that is how Joe Biden agreed to be his vice-president because he understood that if the president does not look at you as a vice-president, if the president does not delegate functions to you, then you are in trouble. But what did the President do? He gave a very careless answer, very tribal. He said ‘maybe some regions would have wanted her to be president and they were not happy that another person from another region’. I held my head. I was so ashamed to hear a president speak in that manner and act so cheap; so low like he was behaving himself there. That was so low for him. He won the election, he is President now. He must understand that what he was promoting in that press briefing of his was hate speech against some regions.”- The Mast
Iam a very knowledgeable Zambian living today and some other but few people definitely too.The majority of Zambians trust and support parties on tribal lines.Look at what kind of people are supporting every nonsense that is committed in the upnd govt ! Look at what kind of people supported the nonsense experienced at the hands of pf ! We can go on and on.You will see that this clique of Zambians are either cadres for life but mostly fellow tribesmen and then those few after earning a living by becoming praise singers.Unless we vote and support individuals n parties that we feel will serve all Zambians ,we shall simply be enriching thosr individuals regardless of which tribe they come from.Are cadres the only Zambians that matter ? Are our tribemates all that matter ? Are thosr people who can pay to buy jobs all that matter ? These questions are important for Zambia to grow .If we cannot get right answers to them and do what is right,Iam sure even N.R.Cs will only be given to the class of people i have mentioned already.Voters must be well informed in order to chose credible leaders.Or else we are headed for disaster because i tremble seeing the growing appetite of many politicians to amass more and more wealth at expense of voters.Povert had no tribe.If Tongas believed they would become richer than before,they can prove me wrong when HH leaves office.Fact is govt has to level the ground for each and every Zambian to participate and be considered for any opportunity that arises.Favouritism will limit Zambians from benefiting from any opportunity that comes up.Some people may disagree but the scenario will remain unchanged ,same
Our colleagues from Southern province have a very big tribal problem. I remember just before the 2016 elections I was somewhere in Lusaka where there was a gathering of people. There happened to be two guys from the Southern province in that gathering, and they were saying Hichilema was going to win the then forthcoming elections! I answered them and said “No he’s not going to win . . . ! “. The reaction I got from those two gentlemen was similar to what Hichilema said at his latest press briefing, they said, “are we going to be ruled by Bembas and Easterners only in this country . . . . ? “. So with that kind of thinking by the people from Southern province, this country is in very big problems! This is why even when the Southerners are the biggest tribalistsin this country, they turn around and accuse the Bembas of being tribal! Yes Bembas may be tribal but not to the extent that the Southerners practice it. Whereby once a Southerner is a boss in an institution, he wants everybody else in that company to be from Southern province. Bembas are not like that. Remember late Anderson Mazoka when he was Managing Director of Zambia Railways, that was what happened, prompting late president Kaunda to set up a commission of inquiry, and the findings proved that tribalism was rampant in Zambia Railways, and Mazoka was removed as MD. In short, I don’t know what is in the Southerners that makes them not want other tribes around them. It’s the same even in the government departments. Once a Southerner is appointed director he only wants to have a driver, secretary from Southern, and will only want to work closely with officers below him from Southern province! Now for this to manifest in the president of Zambia, we are in big problems! But one thing Hichilema should know is that he has shut the door for future presidents to come from Southern province, even to their Lozi and North-Western allies. It will be very difficult for people from these areas to become president of Zambia in future!
Your Postings on this Blog, Sir, including this one always make for sad reading. From your writing I conclude you are a fairly old man, and it’s not surprising you have these entrenched tribal sentiments, common to old people in this country from every Zambian Tribe. Impossible to get rid of. Thanks and grateful that most young Zambians do not know Tribe but only Friendship. The old Tribalists are fading away very quickly and will go with this toxic Attribute!!!
It’s biblical to surround yourself with your tribesmen. Is is not written, “…start from Jerusalem …” And no door is closed as stated in the comment above. God can use whomever He chooses. And nothing happens when God does not allow it. This is why those who kept saying, A Tonga cannot rule this country, are sadly still chewing their bitter words.
When you hear Kalaba speak swrom a distance, you may think he is presidential material. When you get close to him you will realize that he is just another scatter brain.
I got shocked. I thought Kalaba was a presidential material BUT alas he is a kawaywaya
I agree with you totally. How does a mature person discuss a private conversation he or she had with the President on a public forum in this manner?
Kalaba is losing it and becoming irrelevant. How can you not talk about the past? Why then do we learn History in school? It is important to know and understand where you are coming from in order to navigate your way into the future. What Kalaba is telling is that we should forget how PF messed up the nation through reckless borrowing and stealing. Kalaba wants us to remember that he was party to the problems we currently facing. He was party to the PF’s wickedness. Kalaba was a cabinet minister in the PF regime and took part in creating this mess President Hakainde Hichilema is working so hard to clean up.
Kalaba does not want us to know how he resigned from the PF government, claiming that there was too much corruption. Is that what Kalaba doesn’t us to talk about? No Sir, we shall keep reminding you and your friends in PF that you were a brood of vipers in government. Kalaba should know that he resigned not because he is averse to the corruption in PF, but because it dawned on him that his ambition and aspirations of one day becoming PF president were not just a mirage. He got frustrated and that was the reason for his resignation.
So now Kalaba is venting his frustrations on President Hakainde Hichilema for reminding him and his crooked colleagues in PF that they are thieves and murderers who should have been in jail by now. Kalaba has taken a very wrong approach. It won’t work for him and those who think like him.