HOW MUNIR ZULU WON IN LUMEZI

HOW MUNIR ZULU WON IN LUMEZI

October 13, 2020, Richard Phiri , introduced me to Munir Zulu. The meeting was about helping Munir with media activities because there were too many negative stories about him in the media and people had a bad perception about him.  Munir was geared to contest the 2021 elections as MP in Lusaka Central.

The Patriotic Front (PF), in government, controlled media and private media had nothing positive to write about Munir.

Richard knew me through another close friend Ibrahim Mwamba, the current SASYDA President. Ibrahim knew that I got trained in South Africa for digital media, content creation and perception management around 2011.

We sat down with Munir and decided that we would create his own Facebook page where we would post anything about him, and where we will have control.

I suggested we take pictures of him which we would use on his page. So we created Hon. Munir Zulu MP page, after taking a few pictures of him from his house.

We started the work. A few weeks later, I was told that actually, Munir Zulu had abandoned the Lusaka Central Constituency, and was going to stand in Lumezi where he comes from.

A few days later, we were on the road to Lumezi, armed with full media equipment and ready to capture all moments and write everything possible about the journey.

Each trip to Lumezi had over 8 SUV vehicles, with people accompanying Munir. Everyone was taken care of, for accomodation and ka Something whenever there was a trip. In fact, people actually fought for these Lumezi trips because you would never come back with nothing whenever you accompanied Munir.

In Lumezi, Munir knew no promises. If he was told there was a problem with a borehole, he sorted it out there and then without promising to come back later. As the ground work intensified , resistance from the PF – specifically Freedom Sikazwe  and Philila Jere who was incumbent Independent MP but was being promised adoption, and was actually adopted by PF – even became more fierce. Munir became a target of attacks by PF thugs sponsored by those who didn’t want him in Lumezi.

Munir was basically a hated person even at the PF Secretariat. In order to slow him down, Freedom Sikazwe and his friends opted to search for any businesses Munir would have been doing in government in order to block it or block payments. But, the system discovered Munir had no business in Government.

So they wondered, who was funding him and where he was getting money. As someone who became close to Munir during those days, I became aware of his sources of finance. Business. Munir is into all sorts of business, where he generates money genuinely away from government coffers.

However, voters in Lumezi can attest that Munir is a generous person. He solved so many things even before getting into office. In fact, he was nicknamed Pompo Pompo which means, there and then because he solved problems there and then

To make the story short, I did the work and changed the narrative for Munir. He was the first politician I worked with. What an interesting experience it was.

Jeff Mbewe