Every poor Zambian citizen still alive must pray to God to “heal our land” today!
By Azwell Banda,
Today, Friday the 19th of January 2024 is our National Day of Prayer Against Cholera.
Our Church in Zambia in conjunction with the Government of the Republic of Zambia has so wisely and kindly invited all of us to join in prayer, against cholera. I make a special personal appeal to all poor Zambian citizens, young and old, male and female, in all our villages, towns, cities and provinces, to pray against cholera, today. I whole heartedly accept the invitation.
I sincerely and most faithfully join our Church and UPND government in making this appeal to prayers today especially to all poor people of Zambia, who are the majority in Zambia, and are the only ones affected by and dying from cholera, precisely because the appeal has the correct theme rooted in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
The majority of Zambians are struggling under the weight of crushing humiliating hunger, several disease pandemics including HIVAIDS, tuberculosis, dysentery, syphilis, mass systemic and structural unemployment, extreme poverty, corruption, violent crimes including domestic and gender-based violence, rape, sexual assault; burglaries, muggings, and a state of crime terrorism which has infected all our poor communities. All these evils the majority of Zambians suffer from are man-made. They are “man-made” as the majority of our political and capitalist business leaders are men, since our independence, 60 years ago. If we want God to hear our prayers and heal our land, we must humble ourselves and understand and acknowledge these ugly painful facts, about us as a country and a people. To “seek God’s face” is to honestly and bravery confront the truth, take full personal and collective national responsibility, and act in righteous ways.
Our “truth” is that a tiny minority among us have been living fake rich lives by pawning our country’s natural resources to foreign capitalists and collecting bribes and rents, stealing from us especially when they are in government, and always lying and giving us false promises when they are in opposition, and abandoning us when we elect them into government. They do not care about us, the poor majority people of Zambia, all they want are our votes to get into government.
The UPND government deserves several Olympic Gold Medals for cheating, lying, and making false promises to the majority of poor Zambians, when they were in the opposition. They promised to reduce the cost of living and doing business, they have, in the short space of less than three years, massively increased both including by recklessly and selfishly rapidly raising the prices of mealie meal, paraffin, diesel, petrol, transport, rent and many other things necessary and essential for human life and business. In government, the UPND laugh at poor people and call them lazy, of wrong mindset, dependent on government, lacking entrepreneurial drive and unwilling to till the land and grow their own food.
In opposition and after forming government, the UPND ignored, insulted and offended the National Day of Prayer. Now badly in need of new populist lies and false promises to prop up their rapidly depleted popularity, they turn to what they now appreciate and believe we the poor people survive on: superstition and belief in our God. Today, we must pray, instead, for the UPND!
God can and shall heal the land if all our politicians in general and the UPND in particular turn from their selfish and wicked ways. They love and worship money, which they have substituted for God. Instead of a deep respect and recognition that Zambia can only be developed and moved out of its humiliating mass poverty by its poor citizens, who are the majority, our politicians and the UPND court foreign greedy capitalists from whom they make their money through bribes and many other forms of sinful and criminal behaviours.
The UPND in government has ceded our economic and financial sovereignty, therefore our political sovereignty, to foreign money and the IMF/World Bank/World Trade Organisation and Western donors. No people in foreign economic bondage have ever freed themselves from poverty and therefore from poverty diseases and epidemics such as cholera. The UPND government can fool us, for a little while, we the majority of the people of Zambia, to win elections: we are confident they cannot fool God, the God of poor people. Today we must pray that the UPND must repent for their sins of lies, false promises, selfishness, corruption, and pawning our country to greedy foreign money and deceiving God.
The UPND in opposition promised us “democracy”. In government they are an autocratic, undemocratic and thoroughly selfish elite hell bent on enriching themselves, as individuals. Everyone now knows this, including their zealotic and neurotic praise singers, who have run out of verses. The police, the ACC, DEC, courts and parliament are all infested by the rotten virus of selfishness and greed for money, and they pander to whims of the UPND. We must pray that the UPND repent and turn away from these vices which are fuelling our mass hunger and poverty, and supplying poor bodies to cholera.
We were promised a determined, impartial and fair fight against corruption, by the UPND in opposition. Almost three years in government, Hakainde Hichilema does not regularly publicly update the country about his private wealth, income and liabilities, thereby making the fight against corruption by the UPND just another big lie, and another false promise. There are massive rumours and actual corruption permeating the entire UPND and its UPND government. The corruption of the UPND has contributed to drastically reducing our poor rural farming communities’ maize agriculture, as government support to rural poor farmers has been reduced, thereby pushing many villagers into our equally impoverished towns and cities, thus creating perfect conditions for cholera. Today we must pray that UPND’s greed in securing businesses and profits for its members and supporters in fertilisers, seeds and other farm inputs, by pushing others out of this business, especially Zambians, must stop.
All poor Zambians must pray, today, that the UPND government take state responsibility for their failed promises to wipe out cholera when they were in the opposition, and for multiplying, rapidly, the huge numbers of hungry and poor Zambians, thereby creating the conditions for the current cholera epidemic. We now know that two million Zambians are acutely hungry. Almost half of these acutely hungry Zambians have been added onto this pile by the UPND government. We have eight out of every 10 Zambians in all our villages, poor. More than six out of every 10 Zambians countrywide are poor.
Today we must pray that all Zambians must accept that we shall have cholera with us as long as we tolerate and permit to continue to exist our supper exploitative neo-colonial economic system of failed parasitic capitalism, such as the UPND are promoting in Zambia today. We cannot call ourselves by the Name of God as long as we permit such a sinful, selfish and greedy system to continue to thrive, in our land. This system produces mass hunger and poverty while enriching a tiny selfish and greedy elite, who thrive through thieving, corruption, rents and fraud. It is sinful to the core, our economic system.
God can and will heal our land, if we truly qualify to be called by His name through cleansing ourselves of all the sins discussed above, if we humble ourselves and seek the Truth always, and more importantly, if we turn from our wicked ways God will hear us from heaven, and only then, heal our land. In this repentant, honest and humble spirit, we must, we, all the people of Zambia, welcome and heed the request from our Church and government, to pray against cholera in our land, today.
Send comments to: banda.azwell@gmail.com
Who has time to read this verbose diatribe? Azwell Banda is a rich man who lives in South Africa. He cares little about the poor people of Zambia.
Rich man? He’s a fugitive from Chiluba’s reign. I bet he’s just hustling out there, perhaps that’s why his wife Laura Miti left him
So he used to be Laura Miti’s husband! I think journalists do not know because there’s a potential story there. Laura Miti is a regular newsmaker. The failure of her marriage is a matter that should be in public interest.
Chihana, when did you stop smoking? You were a very poor leader at UNZA and it appears you have learnt nothing even with age!
This church and prayer is the reason why Zambians are poor, when the reverend, pastor, Bishop with this new horny bustard man of god need money they tell the flock that you have to look after God’s servant, when it’s a member of ot flock that need money they are told to plant a seed, obvious money is given and the seed germinated in the leaders house, the flock is asked prayer for miracle and his miracle comes from the same widows, orphans wanting help. If Zambian don’t wake and pray to God for good health, good rains, pray for freedom and work for themselves and their families not a lazy wolf dressed in a bible poverty is coming to wipe you out. This is a foolish nation, the citizenry is absolutely blind, chiluba declared Christian nation yet he bought 100s of suites, lungu came he declared national prayer day yet he unleashed vagabonds to beat and kill you. People God is avaliable to whoever seeks even private, don’t be fooled by these criminals, even the same bible warns you of these ungodly characters.