Every President in Zambia has been booed before including KK who received rain of oranges in 1990. The question is not about who has booed the President, but why has the President been booed?
By Harrison Muyeba Musonda
As much as we condemn the booing of the sitting President, what is different with the latest booing of the President that some people start crying and baby sitting the President?
Why is HH implicated in the Booing of the President? Does it mean HH incited the people who booed Kenneth Kaunda? Was HH behind the booing of Frederick Chiluba? Was HH responsible for the booing of Levy Patrick Mwanawasa (MHSRIP). Was HH the master minder of the booing of Michael Sata? What did HH have with the booing of Rupiah Banda?
In 1990, President Kenneth Kaunda was booed and received a rain of oranges in Independence Stadium. “As the motorcade slowly made its way around the running track, there was a booing sound from the crowd. Instead of the usual political slogan of praise and worship, something that no Zambian could have ever imagined to happen became a reality. By the time the Motorcade drove past Gate D, missiles of oranges fruits came raining from the infamous “Gate D” supporters on the eastern side of the stadium hitting the Presidential Motorcade.
This forced the drivers to speed off while his elite presidential guard surrounded the Motorcade to protect the president.
Who in their right frame of mind could have thought that Zambians would be so disillusioned with the administration of President Kaunda after all the industrialization he had brought to the country, the free education, free foreign studies in the former communist countries and indeed the clout that he had built around him to the extent that Zambians thought he was infallible. Who could have thought that young Zambians would lose respect for their beloved leader by showing him so much disrespect in broad daylight? This was the genesis of greater things to come”
President Frederick Chiluba (May his soul Rest In Peace) was booed on 07 June 2010 and Davies Mwila the then PF Copperbelt chairman justified the booing of Chiluba.
COPPERBELT Province Patriotic Front (PF) acting provincial chairman Davies Mwila had observed that Frederick Chiluba deserved the hostile reception he received in Kitwe on Saturday 8 June 2010 because he had chosen to engage in partisan politics. Mwila said President Rupiah Banda and his government would have to answer charges of abuse of authority of office for allegedly using taxpayers’ money to send Chiluba to campaign for them.
Mr. Mwila said it was good that the people of Kitwe had clearly sent a strong message to Chiluba and President Banda that they were tired of MMD. Mr. Mwila wondered what kind of solutions Chiluba would offer to the people then when he was not even the Republican sitting president. Mr. Mwila, who noted that Chiluba was the initiator of the same problems he was purporting to solve, wondered how Chiluba could find solutions in that he failed to do so during his 10-year rule. Mr. Mwila argued that , “ Chiluba was the one who started the sale of houses more than ten years ago. How could he lie to people that he would solve their problems which he failed to solve when he was president?” Mwila asked.
President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa State Council ( May his soul Rest In Peace) was booed and jeered on 20th January 2007 by UNZA students angered by the sale of shares in the state bank Zanaco to a foreign buyer, witnesses said on Saturday.
Mwanawasa, who had come under fire for his economic policies, was booed by University of Zambia students late on Friday when he visited the campus to lay a foundation stone for the construction of more hostels.
“The students jeered the president over the sale of Zanaco (Zambia National Commercial Bank). It was so embarrassing that at one point he was forced to stop speaking,” said a witness.
“The students shouted that it was shameful for the president to agree to International Monetary Fund (IMF) proposals to sell Zanaco shares to a foreign bank.”
Earlier that month some 4,000 protesters demanded the government set aside IMF proposals for tax increases and the reversal of the sale of 49 percent of shares in Zanaco to Rabobank of the Netherlands.
Zambia’s economic growth had accelerated in those years thanks to an increase in copper production and prices as well as the strength of the agricultural sector. It had also won praise from Western governments for prudent economic policies.
President Rupiah Bwezani Banda was booed in MPOROKOSO on 2 March 2011. Residents of Mporokoso booed President Rupiah Banda and his entourage.
President Michael Sata (May his soul Rest In Peace) was on Friday 20th April 2012 afternoon booed by mourners during the church service of former vice-president George Kunda.
Trouble started when Sata stood to address mourners in the church who included almost all opposition leaders.
In his address, Sata decided to attack former envoy to Canada Nevers Mumba and called him ‘some of these tuma pastors without a church who ordained themselves’. This prompted loud booing from the mourners some of them who started shouting that the president’s speech was disjointed.
“So where do we go from here? When it rained oranges, President Kaunda in his humility and love for the nation could not stomach seeing Zambians kill each other for the sake of a position he had occupied for twenty-seven years. He consulted from stable unselfish minds, from people who had toiled for mother Zambia, whose love for Zambia was beyond their personal love for positions and stolen wealth. The decision was made to reintroduce the multiparty system under the banner of One Zambia, One Nation. Humility and love for mother Zambia, Kaunda gave up power when he was crushed at the ballot box.
If the pelting of Kaunda cannot remind others that longevity breeds negativity, then maybe watermelons will do. We have come too far for Zambians to continue being treated like second-hand citizens in their own country. We have come too far for Zambia to be treated like Chisangwa Muñanda aka stepchild, we have come too far to be taken back to the stone age days of insecurity and lost hope, days when we could not sleep for fear of being attacked by the unknown. That is stone-age living, that is not the type of life Zambians should be living in the 21st. Century.
If the elected officials of our country cannot stand up and reshape Zambia for the values it has always been known for, then simply give up and let others move the country forward. Leadership has no monopoly because even the wisest man that ever lived King Solomon who once said to everything there is time, also left when his time was up.
When people get tired and hungry, they turn their hunger into anger and the results become uncontrollable. The leadership of our country in their pretentious demeanor of humility of running a Christian nation should have personal introspection and weigh themselves whether they have what it takes to correct the situation and move Zambia to the next level of development, as a united front of people in diversity, and a secure country.
Please leaders please – Twanaka!
Please leaders please – Tunazeyi
Please leaders please – Twakoka
Please leaders please – Twakatala
Please leaders please – Talema
Please leaders please – Lukatezi
Today we stand united as a country and expect the best from those we have elected to higher offices. We stand united as a country and demand civility and leadership from our humble leaders. We stand united and demand that the flow of blood through killings must stop. We stand united and send this message across the Muchinga Mountains, to the Bangweulu Swamps, into the Valleys of Luapula, to the Lukanga Swamps, across the Copperbelt, to the future economic backbone of Zambia, Northwestern, to the Land of the “Wisemen” across Luangwa, to the Valleys of Gwembe, to the Plains of Barotseland and to the Malls of Lusaka that, when a leader becomes tired, it’s time to say with humility, can someone else take over?
It is time the Zambia leadership learned a lesson from Pope Benedict XVI who left the Papacy when he felt he could no longer perform his duties, by way of a Papal Renunciation!! People respected his decision and he walked out gracefully. President Kambarage Nyerere did the same. Even the chosen one leaves the seat when it’s time to do so. Zambia needs a Joshua to lead the country to the promised land and now is the time. The question is who has the spirit of Aka and his colleagues?”