CHISHIMBA Kambwili says although he has been threatened with jail if he does not go back to PF by July, he cannot send text messages to President Edgar Lungu.
While addressing PF officials in Luwingu last weekend, President Lungu described Kambwili and MMD leader Nevers Mumba as politicians who are mostly preoccupied with playing to the gallery.
“Don’t be like Chishimba Kambwili or Nevers Mumba, in the morning they send me text messages, in the afternoon they are insulting before cameras and in the evening they are apologising for the insults during the day. I can only speak for my brother ‘Ba Kambwili’ because I know him and I have worked with him. That’s how he is,” Lungu said. “But for Nevers Mumba, I don’t know him that well. I don’t know him; I don’t even recognise him and his group as MMD. It’s like he has not learnt anything from his problems in the MMD. Can he be serious with what he wants.”
The President said this in response to PF members who complained to him about certain intraparty issues they had raised with him.
He admonished the party members to be patient and wait to see how their president was moving.
“Ba Luwingu, I know and I have heard the issues you have been raising. I have not forgotten. Things of course may delay but I don’t forget. I am moving and will soon deliver on those issues. I read all the messages I receive. But don’t be like Kambwili and Nevers Mumba…You write text messages, so kindly wait for responses or action. I am on top of things,” said President Lungu.
But Kambwili, the NDC president, said he had suffered under the current regime but for President Lungu to lie that he texts him in the night to apologise showed that the Head of State had no issues to talk about.
“When you send messages, the messages are kept, so let him publish the messages. You can have a President who is lying, how can people trust a lying president? President Lungu must live his life above board because when a president starts lying in the country then you get worried,” Kambwili said.
“That’s the greatest joke of the year…You know I have suffered under this regime, I have suffered badly and everybody knows but for him to say I call him in the night to apologise then what kind of a human being is he…I attack him in morning and then I apologise in the evening and he accepts and he keeps quiet!”
Kambwili said President Lungu only wants to paint a picture that he had intentions of going back to PF because he had seen the impact of NDC.
“That will not work, I have said I have been threatened that ‘if Kambwili will not join PF by July, we are going to send him to prison…we have instructed some magistrate to work on him’ but I have not gone back to apologise, I have not gone back to PF. If they want to send me to jail let them send me to jail. Bushe ababa ku jail te bantu (those in jail, aren’t they people)? So long I will go to jail for trumped-up charges, for not committing an offence, it’s alright but posterity will judge them very harshly,” he said.
Kambwili said sending him to jail was one of the weapons PF wants to use but he would not play a coward and go and rejoin his former party.
“Let Lungu know that I am one person uushitina, nshitina ine…I have heard what they have been saying that if I don’t rejoin them by July, they have instructed some magistrate to send me to prison and you have heard Tayali (Chilufya) say Kambwili we have technically dealt with him, he will go to prison for a long time. So I know their manipulations but he must be ashamed that a president can tell lies,” Kambwili said. “I challenge him to publish the messages. I have never sent him any message to plead with him or otherwise. I know he hates me with a passion, the man hates me after what I did for him, campaigning for him vigorously. First he fired me, brings trumped-up charges and now he thinks I can submit to him…I am not that kind of a person,” he said.
Kambwili said if he wanted to dialogue with President Lungu, he would do it openly and not hide.
He also said if President Lungu wanted to dialogue with him, he should also do it openly than lie about him and Mumba.
Kambwili said no one would throw a stone at a tree that does not bear fruits, unless such a person was mad.
“He is mentioning me because he is feeling the pressure and tell him I am ready to go to prison if he wants to take me to prison using his courts. I can’t plead with him and I don’t play to the gallery. I am not GBM who says ‘no I was politicking’. Me I mean what I say and that’s what differentiates Chishimba Kambwili with these other politicians,” he said. “Tell him that he is not an Alpha and Omega and will not be in power for the rest of him life. He can send me to prison but others will also send him to prison. So what he was saying was a bunch of lies, excellent lies coming from a president; we can have a leader, a president who tells lies! If other people plead with him, not Chishimba Kambwili.”
Kambwili said when a president travels all the way to Northern Province to talk about an individual then he had no issues to address.
“He has run out of what to tell the people so wherever he goes, he thrives on the name Chishimba Kambwili. So it is haunting him. He has no issues at all, abantu balecula, ubunga bwali nina umutengo (people are suffering, the price of mealie-meal has gone up), people have no salary increments, policemen are suffering, soldiers are suffering but he is busy talking about Chishimba Kambwili. His job is sort out the issues in the economy, issues people are faced with, not talking about individuals,” said Kambwili.