Hakainde Hichilema: pseudologia fantastica, a perfect clinical mythomania patient- Azwell Banda

Hakainde Hichilema: pseudologia fantastica, a perfect clinical mythomania patient

Knowing full well that a private letter to Mr Hakainde Hichilema, President of Zambia, will go unacknowledged and unanswered, nursing a burning desire to make a personal public statement as a bona fide Zambian citizen about Mr Hichilema and his UPND government, I have decided to write him an Open Letter, below. Two more open letters are on the way.

Dear Mr Hakainde Hichilema,

I know you are well, since as unlike millions of Zambians, hunger is not one of your problems, and your personal and family health are well taken care of by both the Zambian government and private doctors. I write to inform you about my deepest convictions and feelings about your government and yourself, now that you are past two and a half years of your first and ever only term of office.

You and your political party lied big time to win elections. You, in particular, have numerous evidence of the many important lies and promises you made poor Zambians to win elections posted on social media daily, now. You promised Zambians to lower the cost of living and doing business. You have massively hiked the cost of living and radically lowered the cost of doing business for yourself, your friends and foreign companies while punishingly raising the same, for the majority of Zambians who survive in the informal sector.

Unfortunately, you have continued to lie even when in government. The most painful lie from your UPND government is that Zambians must be happy now, because life would be far much tougher had the PF continued in government. You know very well this is not true: it is impossible to determine whether the majority of Zambians would be far worse of today, if the PF had won the elections in 2021, as there is absolutely no scientific basis for such a false assertion. You use this assertion to hide your incompetence, massive negative impact of your austerity measures on the majority of Zambians, corruption in the UPND government, and the rapid rise of the cost of living since you formed government, contrary to your false promises and lies.

Now in government, you colour your lies with false interpretations of data, such as that the economy is growing even as you know millions of Zambians are starving, unemployed and their poverty is growing! You tell dramatic stories about a better future for Zambians when everyone who cares knows the capitalism you practice cannot simultaneously make a tiny minority filthy rich and simultaneously drastically improve the lives of the majority of Zambians. People think when you speak, you mumble too much and are incoherent and inconsistent: like all pathological liars, you suffer from acute anxiety whenever you speak in public. You never concede failure, but are always defensive, especially when you are confronted about your lies.

You are vague and change your stories so frequently; it is impossible to define who you are, personality wise. You promised to reduce the prices of basic commodities, in government you defend “market pricing” of commodities even as most of these commodities now are way beyond reach of the majority of Zambians. Instead of lowering the cost of living, you have attacked the majority of Zambians who are struggling with the extremely high cost of living for being lazy, dependent on government and PF free things and money, having no entrepreneurial spirit, of poor mindset, drunkards and so on. It is mind bothering why you lie even when there is absolutely no need to do so. For example, which countries exactly want to hire you to unleash the mass hunger, economic chaos, unemployment and poverty your two and a half years in government have unleashed in Zambia? If your white, racist colonial fans lie thus to you, I expect you, as a sober man, to see through such lies easily. No country needs your skills and services, not even Zambia anymore.

You recently said, at a UPND function, that you judge your government as having met at least 7 out of 10 of all your election promises. Whom exactly are you fooling? You are making this assertion when more than 700 Zambians have died from cholera, a large number of miners died and are buried where the earth fell on them, 2,000,000 Zambians face acute hunger and your reckless exports of maize have unleashed the highest price hikes in mealie meal ever and its shortages, and now combined with the drought, threaten to cause a famine in Zambia such as we have never experienced since independence. And yet you were elected primarily to attend to the urgent matter of national hunger and lowering the cost of living. You are totally unaffected by your lies, even when you are caught out: you instead manufacture new ones on top of the old ones, like all pathological liars do.

You appear to feel victorious and enjoy a high when your praise singers, instead of warning you that you are “naked” whenever you lie go ahead instead and attack those who are alerting you to your political nudity and political pornography. Your words never match your actions, ever. You celebrated “debt restructuring” even as you knew this was not true – the job was far from done! You said Vedanta would never return, and yet they are here now, and are busy looking for other people’s money to consolidate their take-over of KCM, including by actually selling off part of the mine, through shares. I can go on, and on, illustrating and giving examples of this bad behaviour you suffer from.

Most disturbingly, you have recently begun the public process of concealing your lies, and false promises, incompetence, corruption and many other sins involved in your government’s bangling of the maize sector behind the drought. Suddenly, and without any provocation, you lie that no Zambian will die from hunger as the drought further worsens the hunger your reckless handling of the maize sector has unleashed. How do you know this as a fact that no Zambian will die from hunger? Typical of a person suffering from pseudo fantastica you have not announced any detailed, quantified, concrete, costed and time bound visible measures your government is actually planning or carrying out to ensure that non-GMO maize quickly floods Zambia to alleviate the already mounting shortages and ever rising prices of mealie meal. Instead, you have made a woolie announcement of a disaster and a list of wishes you lie will make the necessary amounts of maize available to prevent hunger.

You need to get psychological and psychiatric help: I diagnose you with possible “pathological lying” also known as pseudo fantastica or mythomania. Your lying behaviour is a sickness you must seek help for, before it is too late. As a 2020 study titled “Pathological Lying: Theoretical and Empirical Support for a Diagnostic Entity” conducted by Doctors Draw Curtis and Christian L. Hart found, you exhibit “a persistent, pervasive, and often compulsive pattern of excessive lying behaviour that leads to clinically significant impairment of functioning in social, occupational, or other areas, causes marked distress, poses a risk to self or others and occurs for longer than six months.” Today, in fact, throughout the world, the majority of capitalist and right-wing politicians like you exhibit some or all of these clinical signs, as they reduce perception of their performance into a struggle for manufactured and false “political narratives” for public consumption.

These “political narratives” are lies said many times over by politicians like you, Hakainde Hichilema, with the hope that these lies will quickly garner public traction and effectively conceal the lies and false promises you make. Donald Trump, former president of the US is a past master and excellent example of this capitalist and fascist trend among your type of right-wing capitalist politician.

It is the poor urban and rural young people and mothers you have hurt the most. As a businessman yourself, in the opposition, you promised them many quality, decent and high paying jobs and business opportunities. You promised the majority of our poor mothers who survive on street vending to protect their livelihoods and secure their trading places. In government, you accuse both of being lazy, dependent on government, without entrepreneurial acumen, with a wrong mindset, alcoholics and so on. Gone are the promises of mining licenses to youths, finance, training, business plots, you so lavishly promised when you were in the opposition.

As for street vendors your government charges them with facilitating the spread of diseases, environmental degradation, and making our towns and cities dirty. You have set your bull dogs at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to demolish their trading facilities and in many cases also destroyed their meagre wares. Only a cold, insensitive and uncaring government which has unleashed mass hunger, unemployment, poverty and grotesque inequalities does this to its citizens. And yet when in the opposition you promised you would make Zambians matter the most and come first. This was all lying, isn’t it, to prize the votes off our poor youths and mothers.

Power is sweet, when one has it. But power never lasts, it ends. Will you please try and get help, urgently, for your psychological condition, before it is too late? I ask you with the deepest feelings of sympathy and empathy, any sick person deserves, from me.

I remain hopeful that you can overcome your challenges if you seek professional help.

Azwell Banda.

Send comments to: banda.azwell@gmail.com