HH a ‘little man that is so better’ – Saboi
By Fanny Kalonda
SABOI Imboela has accused President Hakainde Hichilema of proving to be “a little man” that comes out bitter and wants to revenge.
Featuring on the Hot Seat programme yesterday, Imboela who leads the NDC faction wondered whether President Hichilema does not understand his role or the power of the position he holds.
“But Mr Hakainde Hichilema misses out on those [Nelson] Mandela moments and when he is supposed to be this big person. This President, he proves to us that he is a small man. You know he is a little little man that is so bitter, comes out and wants to revenge and wants to do many things that are not even supposed to be done,” she said. “He is a President for heaven’s sake. Maybe he doesn’t understand the role of his position, the power of that position. That is a position that even if you had an enemy you would call them and say ‘you know what, I forgive you’. Not because that person even asked for the forgiveness but because the position that you hold does not even allow you to have those personal grudges against people.”
Imboela accused the UPND of being an “abused child that has become an abuser”.
“So the UPND have become that abused child that has become an abuser. Instead of saying ‘I went through this, I don’t want the others to go through this’. HH as a leader he has missed out and he continues missing out on so many Mandela moments. There is a reason why a Mandela exists. At a time he should have gone left, he went right,” he said.
Imboela has accused the UPND administration of hating criticism when they were always negative while in opposition.
“The UPND in terms of opposition politics, they were that party that were always negative. They never said anything good about PF. No wonder they cannot even control Facebook cadres…” she said. “And if there is a place whereby you can even appreciate the Zambia Police is when it comes to cyber issues. They are very good at that. But to them they want to create a situation whereby it should only be barred to insult the President but it is not bad to insult Saboi, no! Everybody is equal before the law. If people are going to feel comfortable to insult me, they should feel comfortable to insult HH. No one is above the law and everybody deserves respect. It is as simple as that.”
Imboela said the kind of politics that the UPND have brought about of insulting others would result in opposition parties doing the same.
“We grew up in Chilenje with my mother, I know how to insult. You get the point? People should not mistake me being a woman and being an educated person that I don’t know how to say certain things. I do. But I restrain myself. So…I will insult, trust me, they will not even take me to the police, they bring the Bible. So we know these things as people that grew up in these communities but we retrain ourselves…” she said. “Right now the kind of politics that the UPND have brought about whereby they want to insult everyone who says anything, trust me it will get to those levels where all of us will start doing that.”
Imboela accused the UPND of using other people like “praise singers to do their dirty work”.
“I am that person who is humiliated everyday as a woman in politics. I am insulted every day. But if they see the strength in me, and they see that I am able to fight back, not through insults whichever tactics am going to use, when people see that she is strong, she can fight back, many women will join because what we need in this country are many women joining politics,” said Imboela. “That is why I say that they are demagogues. I have called President HH himself as a demagogue, as a demagogue. You don’t do your dirty work, you use your people to do that. There are people who are called praise singers. What is the job of praise singers? To insult us. And the entire President goes on social media and says ‘my fellow praise singers’. Does he know what the praise singers do? Does he know how much they have destroyed democracy in this country? Under the PF, we had the so-called cadres. Under the UPND we have got the praise singers. They are worse than the cadres because as an opposition leader myself I had to go to the station, I had to go to the market to be intimidated, to be threatened even to be beaten if you are a person but for the praise singers you don’t need to go to their space. They come into your space, you post something and they insult you.”