BELEMU STABBED HIMSELF ON THE BACK
The Scoop editorial: May 13, 2022
IT IS laughable that former Mbabala Member of Parliament Ephraim Belemu can today turn around and claim that he has decided to rejoin the United Party for National Development (UPND) because of restored sanity, normalcy, and a clear political ideology shown by the ruling party.
We have not forgotten how on April 6, 2021, Belemu defected to the then ruling Patriotic Front (PF) claiming the UPND had stabbed him in the back. He said he entered politics to champion a cause and that at that time, the cause had been betrayed by the UPND and its leadership.
This is the same Belemu who told this nation that there was an assumption in the UPND that come August 12, 2021, the was going to form Government and that there were many people like himself who people thought would disturb that feast and therefore, they had found it fit to start kicking them out.
He likened the UPND to a bunch of people fighting for offals for a buffalo that is still in the field which they had not yet slaughtered adding that the UPND had turned into a monster, a hyena that thrived and ate its own babies by accusing them of smelling like goat as an excuse to eat them. Belemu’s fight was with the top UPND leadership.
It is the same leadership that is there today. The same leadership he said backstabbed him. Today, he says the same leadership has restored normalcy into this nation; the same leadership he branded as being monsters. But what is it that this leadership has done within a year that it has now completely turned around to become a better leadership that can attract people it allegedly oppressed like Belemu, a few moons ago?
For those of you who do not know the events leading to Belemu leaving the UPND just a week before the preliminary adoptions, you must know that Belemu left the UPND because of the threat posed by other candidates who were more popular than him who eyed Mbabala. Belemu’s complaint was that the party did not protect his bid for re-adoption.
What Belemu wanted was for the party to prevent other aspirants from campaigning and mobilising their people for possible adoption, more so, that his popularity in Mbabala had dwindled and he knew that he could not fend off the opponents.
One such candidate who gave Belemu sleepless nights in Mbabala was former Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) Executive Director Ndambo Ndambo who had shown interest to stand on the UPND ticket in Mbabala and waged a crowd-pulling campaign far much better than what Belemu could garner.
Therein lay the problem. To save himself from the impending embarrassment, he defected to the PF under frustrations. Belemu simply stabbed himself. No one did. And he has just returned to the UPND because it has formed Government and nothing else.
Belemu has his right to association which we cannot take away from him but as much as we have been meant to believe that politic is a dirty game, we feel integrity and honesty are still norms that should govern politicians. In his mind, Belemu was sure that the UPND would not win the 2021 elections. Greed and bitterness had engulfed him to an extent that he did not want other people to take over from him.
He did not want to sacrifice just like others had sacrificed for him to be MP for two terms. He wanted to continue because it served him right and because it was all about personal aggrandisment, he was sure that if the PF won the 2021 elections, he would get a position or at least would have been eating with them.
These kinds of politics are dangerous because they are not premised on the desire to serve but for personal benefits. Request Muntanga was one of the prominent and outstanding Members of Parliament under the UPND. Even late Michael Sata never monkeyed around with Muntanga because he respected the way he conducted himself as a politician. Muntanga was left out during the adoptions but did he resign from the party? That is the integrity we are talking about.
We have no problem with Belemu rejoining the UPND but he must not be allowed to sit anywhere near the echelons of power. Let him stand at the back of the queue and graze with the cows like Nebuchadnezzar did until he realises that the UPND is bigger than any individual.
Let him learn humility and the need to serve and not to be served by others. When it is clear that he has repented, he can then wash his hands and eat with the elders. For now, let him learn from the same sanity and normalcy he now sees from the UPND from a prodigal son’s point of view.