Edgar Lungu has created problems for some chiefs by turning them into his campaign managers. It is isolating them from their subjects.
Chiefs function well when their actions are in tandem with the feelings and aspirations of their people. Some chiefs have been given motor vehicles and all sorts of things to campaign for Edgar. Patriotic Front branded bicycles have flooded some palaces. What is this all about?
Their subjects are not fools; they know what is going on and they don’t like it at all.
These bribes won’t do. There are many chiefs who cannot be bought, bribed in this way.
This has been tried before but it has failed in many parts of our country. For instance, there are chiefs in Southern Province who hired themselves out to the service of those in power but totally failed to persuade their subjects to go with them.
The story of Edgar pumping K1.2 million in Northern and Muchinga provinces to get votes through some chief doesn’t surprise us. Edgar is very desperate about getting a third term of office. And desperate people do desperate things.
But desperate and corrupt measures won’t get him a third term. People are seeing through all his corrupt activities. And Michael Sata taught them ‘Don’t kubeba’. If Edgar was really part of Sata’s campaign he would have known better that these bribes of his won’t work – ‘Don’t kubeba’ works.