HAKAINDE HAS NOmMORAL RIGHT TO CLAIM HE CAN FIX THE ECONOMY- LUSAMBO
Lusaka Province Minister Bowman Lusambo writes:
Martin Luther King, Jr. is often quoted as having once said, “vanity asks, is it popular? Politics ask, will it work? But conscience and morality ask, is it right?”
I wish to implore Hakainde Hichilema to reflect on these very important words as he goes round speaking to radio stations in phone interviews. It is disturbing that in his desperate attempt to enter State House, Hakainde has developed a high pomposity to lie. The Hichilema we saw in past election campaigns is totally different from what we see today. The Hichilema of today is lying about fixing everything.
Like Martin Luther King Jr said, we ask Mr Hichilema, where is your conscience and morality when you claim you can fix an economy which you helped destroy?
In morally upright societies, Mr Hichilema would never have been given a chance to even vie for public office. He has no moral and ethical standing to seek to serve the Zambian people. By his actions of participating in the privatization of key state assets and later personally benefiting from such, he is complicit to the misery and poverty that have befallen millions of Zambian families.
Listening to Mr Hichilema’s phone interview on Radio Chimwemwe recently on which he again postulated that he is some kind of a general fixer of everything broken in Zambia, I am reminded of a conversation I had with late President Dr Frederik Chiluba at his Serval Road residence over lunch when he told me, pointing at Mr Hichilema’s house that “My neighbour here can’t be trusted with public office. We gave him and his educated friends an opportunity to advise us on privatization and he ended up awarding himself this same House he is staying in. The young man cannot be trusted.” Those words still ring in my head each time I hear Mr Hichilema claim that he can fix Zambia.
What is however true is that the only thing that pushes Mr Hichilema to continue to attempt to occupy State House is that he wants to come back and finish his mission of looting state resources. He has done it before, he will do it again if Zambians ever give him a chance to get close to state coffers.
With all his riches, Mr Hichilema has to date failed to give an account of how he made his money. Each time he is asked a question about his source of wealth, his answer has always been education. Now we ask, how many other graduates in Zambia have made the same kind of money as Mr Hichilema? What is so special about him that he can amass so much money in so little time all because of his education? As long as he fails to account for his money, we will continue to tell the Zambian people that the man has long fingers and he should not be anywhere close to the public purse.
This explains why the Zambian people have rejected Mr Hichilema on five attempts and they will do it again in 2021. The Zambians have already decided that His Excellency President Edgar Chagwa is Lungu offers the safest pair of hands to manage national affairs and thus they will give him another five year mandate.
So the next time Mr Hichilema jumps on a phone interview on some radio station and tries to make further claims, let him ask himself, “Is my conscience and morality right?”