Hichilema’s Cabinet is the worst in Zambia’s history: it is now possibly committing economic genocide – Pt 1- Azwell Banda,

Hichilema’s Cabinet is the worst in Zambia’s history: it is now possibly committing economic genocide – Pt 1

By Azwell Banda,

If you are a sane Zambian, now, half-way through the only term in office of Hakainde Hichilema and his UPND political choir, it hurts, horribly, to realise the historic proportions of the lies, deception, treachery and political thuggery and violence Hakainde Hichilema and his UPND supporters used to get into government.

We were lied to as it has never happened before to us, as a people, a country and nation state, by Hakainde Hichilema and his UPND support choir. They got into government by deception. Now, in government, Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND have contemptuously dumped their election winning strategy of lying and feeding us false promises in order to win elections. They have now turned against the mases of Zambia, especially the majority of Zambians who are young, extremely poor, hungry, unemployed and suffer untold miseries in our all urban and rural areas. Hakainde Hichilema and his UPND government are now showing Zambians their true ideological colours, their cold, cruel, extreme right-wing, proto-fascist, conservative and slavery extolling, pro-colonialism, pro-conservative capitalism and imperialism, and as unashamed puppets of the West.

Hichilema and his UPND government now blame the majority of Zambians for their mass hunger, unemployment, poverty and all suffering apparently because the majority of Zambians are lazy, love free things, breed uncontrollably, lack entrepreneurial skills, do not invest, are ignorant and need knowledge and wisdom from Hichilema, and have a wrong mindset, among the many inferior human attributes they suffer from.

And so, half-way through their only term of office, Hakainde Hichilema and his friends in government, while committing social and economic genocide against the majority of Zambians, are forcing Zambians to accept that Hakainde Hichilema is the best president of Zambia, he is God given, and even Kenneth Kaunda apparently asked Hichilema to become president of Zambia. It is pure cruelty, absolute insensitivity to the suffering of others, inhuman, and frankly, insane, to ask a people you have reduced into a mass of extreme untold hunger, whom you are punishing with extreme high prices of paraffin, petrol, diesel, transport, electricity, charcoal, candles, rent, saladi, soap, sugar, kapenta, fish, meat, chicken, mealie meal and so on, to love you, to cheer you on, to celebrate you and to support you in the economic and social genocide you are committing against them.

Incredibly, Hichilema’s UPND are happy to announce that they have achieved, in just half a term of office, more than 80 per cent of the promises they made to Zambians. In fact, they are rebuking Zambians for not voting for them earlier. These days Hakainde is telling us he feels like he has been in government for 10 years, because of all the many good things he has done for Zambia, in just half a term of office. There are clearly many forms of insanity, especially in politics. I am researching and carrying out my own philosophical and speculative clinical diagnosis of this variant of extreme political insanity Hichilema, his pathetic praise singers, and the UPND are suffering from. The symptoms are all there to see, especially in Hichilema himself, and among his UPND political choir and his sycophantic praise singers. Hichilema’s praise singers’ cognitive dissonance has reached a terminal phase. Many can no longer deny that Hichilema and the UPND are fake, thieves, corrupt, autocrats, and have a very short life shelf, in government. They too are suffering, you see, terribly.

Half-way through the first term of Hakainde’s “dream cabinet”, it is this cabinet which best confirms the treacherous and criminal abandonment of what we now know to have been a strategy to win elections based on lies and false promises, when all along, Hakainde and his top leaders harboured extreme contempt, and had absolutely no intentions should they be in government, to immediately aggressively tackle the then existing, and now exponentially exploded, massive social and economic crises the majority of Zambians were and are suffering from. They knew exactly why they wanted to get into government: for themselves as individuals, their families, friends, and their business associates all the while making a killing from selling huge chunks of our natural resources and key sectors of our economy such as land, agriculture, large scale manufacturing, fuels, electricity, tourism, finance and so on, to foreign money, especially from the US and its Western allies.

In the opposition, Hichilema presented himself and the UPND as if they were fully aware, very sensitive, and would, upon assuming office, immediately embark upon concrete measures to lower the cost of essential goods and services vital to Zambia’s domestic and economic life. They mocked the Patriotic Front (PF) government for its “incompetence” as Hichilema was presented as a brilliant and clever economist, and very intelligent successful businessman whose time to rule and rescue Zambia had come. They carefully packaged, grossly exaggerated using sophisticated digital media, and exploited to the maximum the main social, economic and political grievances the majority of Zambians had against the PF government, and promised a radical programme of constitutional, legal and democratic reforms. They lied they would urgently attend to the matters of the high cost of living and doing business. They promised cheaper prices for several vital and essential goods such as fuels, food, rent, transport, electricity and many others.

Apparently, to carry out the work of fulfilling his and the UPND election promises, and to run an effective government capable of doing so, Hichilema took long to create his cabinet. On 5th September, 2021, Hakainde Hichilema promised Zambians that his would be a high-quality cabinet and Zambians would be shocked why his predecessor was unable to put up such a quality cabinet. Hichilema, throughout his period in the opposition, had shown contempt for the PF cabinet in general, and Edgar Chagwa Lungu himself, in particular. Effectively, Hakainde has never, to this day, properly acknowledged Lungu as president of Zambia. Zambians, therefore, were made to believe Hakainde’s delays in making cabinet appointments and filling other government offices were due to his being “methodical”: Hakainde did not want mediocrity and rascals in government.

Thus, national expectations about the possible high quality cabinet Hichilema would appoint were quite heightened. Having made massive promises to the Zambian people when in the opposition, it was just natural and logical that many Zambians expected a “dream cabinet” in the first government formed by Hichilema and his UPND. The era of low calibre ministers was over, we were made to believe. Alas, it is now very clear Hichilema’s delays in making cabinet and other appointments had nothing to do with finding Zambia’s best brains, talents, education, skills, experience, patriotism, ability and capacity to perform: we now know differently, including that the delays in fact are merely an expression of Hakainde’s ignorance of Zambia’s human resources and his rabid tribalism and regionalism. It is now abundantly clear that the delay to appoint his cabinet was also occasioned by the fact that HH was consciously looking for the worst traits possible and blind loyalty to himself, in those he would appoint.

For once, Hakainde Hichilema spoke the truth: his cabinet, in the past two and a half years has indeed been traumatising, for the majority of Zambians: they all, without exception, are the epitome of mediocrity, incompetence, backwardness, lack of patriotism, and absolute lack of political acumen to read the mood of the masses, as politicians. They are a mean, selfish, cold and calculating lot, for themselves as individuals, as a collective and for their paymasters. Thew have demonstrated utter contempt for the majority of Zambians and their hunger, unemployment, poverty and the extreme social, economic and political injustices and inequalities they suffer, every day.

In one fundamental quality, all of Hakainde Hichilema’s cabinet members have excelled: their abiding devotion at insulting the majority of Zambians while simultaneously coldly brushing aside the real concerns of the mass of the people of Zambia. Hichilema appointed them very well, in another attribute: they all shower, individually and collectively, unqualified zombie like adulation on HH. They appear as if they have all suspended their consciousness and consciences, and have sublimated these into lavishing fake praise, glory and honour to their Great Leader, Hichilema. By their repugnant example, they hope to induce the Zambian masses to ape them.

For the first time in Zambia, we have a cabinet that is so lacking in vital cabinet and communication skills, values and conscience that they deserve an honoured place in the Guinness Book of Records. They have aborted their consciences and are totally incapable of confronting their idol, Hichilema, to bring him down to earth. Zambia is confronted with severe existential challenges and crises but these ministers have responded with extremely degrading insults to Zambians and very cold, arrogant and insensitive language at every turn when they are reminded either of their electoral promises or responsibilities as a government.

Now, “genocide” is the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. The UN Convention on Genocide lists any one of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as “genocide”: Killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The extreme neo-liberal ideology of the UPND and their IMF, World Bank and Western donors policies and conditionalities thrust upon Zambia when the UPND formed government amount to measures, and now evidence has exploded and is everywhere including in the more than 700 deaths from cholera, more than half of Zambia facing severe hunger, more than 6.6 million Zambians suffering acute hunger because the UPND government sold and exported our maize reserves, 80 per cent rural poverty, 60 per cent national average mass poverty, extreme and rapid rise in the cost of living including in the prices of basic essentials such as fuels, electricity, transport, rent, food and so on in a country with more than 90 per cent of the population relying on the informal impoverishing economy amounts to deliberate and conscious acts of “economic genocide”: using the economy to cull a national population of its “surplus people”, to the national economy.

In Part Two next Friday I may discuss, using a sample of Hakainde’s cabinet and some of his praise singers, what is said in this article.

Send comments to: banda.azwell@gmail.com