Finally Hakainde has woken up!

0

THE MAST
COMMENT FOR AUGUST 4, 2023

Finally Hakainde has woken up!

It is often said actions speak louder than words or trust must be earned. For those in public office, feedback is critical if they’re to successfully manage citizens’ expectations and rightfully attend to their needs.


This is why interaction is essential. Why? Because one of the most important aspects of being a human being is interacting with others. Man is a social being, and we can’t stay alone anywhere. The art of interacting with others helps us to be friendly with others and empathise with them. Many times, we think about what to say and how to say it.

However, if we have grown up among friends and relatives, these tactics are instilled in us automatically. Social interaction includes how we interact with others, to act and how to react. In our everyday lives, we meet many people, and if we know how to handle our social relationships, we are definitely successful in our lives.

In leadership, having direct access with the led is crucial. This is why we encourage Hakainde Hichilema to spend a fair amount of time in the communities at home than in the presidential jet and lands afar or navigating between Community House and State House!
Addressing a joint Evelyn Hone College and NIPA interactive forum to celebrate


the UPND’s two years in government on Thursday, President Hichilema said, “I’m missing you. I’m missing the people of Zambia because when you are put into the presidency you have so many hangers about, around you and you can’t mix freely. And from today, this week, I have told myself, we have restructured the debt, we are reconstructing the economy. We have cleaned up the image of Zambia in the eyes of the international community.

We are now a worthy member of the league of nations. If you travelled before elections, you arrived at the airport they looked at your passport, Zambia, they said hmmm that country! Now when you travel, they look at your passport, they say ah, from Zambia come in, come in. That is worth a lot. Image, credibility. Now that we are pulling these in the right place, and we inherited an economy which was growing minus 2.8 per cent…and we have been able to bottom up, while we continue to push that side, this friend of yours wants to come out and reach out to communities like NIPA and Evelyn Hone a lot more. That’s why I said I’m missing the people.

I want my colleagues in government to allow me time to have interactions like this so I can learn what is on the ground and how we can intervene together with my colleagues in government: local, central, quasi – parastatals, because we work for you. If we don’t have this interaction sometimes we miss certain things. I accept. We are now going to spend a fair amount of time in the communities so I can see with my own eyes, I can hear with my ears, I can relate to what I read and take it to my colleagues in Cabinet that can we deal with these issues. Is that not a good idea? So when I told you I’m missing you, you were quiet. I’m missing you. I’m missing you for that interaction.”
He is right. He has missed a lot of things. We have been consistent in informing him that the situation on the ground is not rosy. We have always alerted him about the high poverty levels and skyrocketing prices of essential commodities. But he seemed to have rubbished us as mere negative energy until he visited Mandevu Constituency. There he came face-to-face with reality. Maybe that interaction and the evident brutal reaction from people was the wakeup call he needed. His administration has for two years been distant from the masses. We hope his handlers now realise that things are not as they paint them. The 2.8 million, at this rate, cannot be sustained. This new dawn must now come down to earth and listen more. Address the plight of people. Lessen boardroom presentations and this league of nations talk. Deal with mealie meal prices, address fuel prices, and look at the liquidity side of the economy.


There is still time for Hakainde to reconnect with the people who put him where he is today. We applaud him for waking up and realising that he has all along allowed himself to be surrounded by hangers about as he puts it. And these hangers about can be brutal sometimes because they make sure they keep you away from reality while they enjoy from their interactions with you. And in your quest to please them, you detach yourself from the masses and the promises you made to them. And because these hangers about are always with you, the only problems you begin to attend to are theirs and those of their close allies. Actually, this is called state capture. You may not be aware of this as President, but with your excitement you invite it upon yourself and swim in it. You stop looking beyond your nose. Eventually, people begin to complain and you close your ears because you have convinced yourself that you have done the best for them when in fact not.
This is the situation Hakainde has been in for the last two years. He convinced himself that he was the best thing – President – that has ever happened to Zambia. That he has the best brains which do not need input from anyone else. And that he scored a first all the time. It’s like whatever the other six presidents did for this country is nothing compared to what Hakainde imagined he has done in two years. Yes, it is allowed to dream.

Nevertheless, self-deception can only go to a certain extent. At some point reality has to dawn. And this reality has dawned on Hakainde, especially after the reception he had in Mandevu Constituency. It showed him that while he was praising himself for doing nothing good for the people, the same people were busy despising and cursing him as prices of essential commodities kept rising. He also realised that even his praise singers no longer have enough energy to do that because they also suffer the same economic hardships. Majority praise singers’ economic state is actually a common destiny – hardship, squalor and swimming in the sea of joblessness! It’s hopeless.


We hope that he will not close his eyes and ears again and wait for the 2026 campaigns. And we hope that from now on, Hakainde and his team will devise their own programme instead of depending on the IMF prescribed ‘poison’ that is still chocking Zambians. We are yet to see how far this prescription takes this country.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here