Emmanuel Mwamba
Airport tarmac interviews, a PR nightmare
I’ve always objected to Presidents making those Airport tarmac interviews.
They create a PR nightmare.
It reminds me of President Frederick Chiluba arriving from abroad and commented on the shooting of Dr. Kenneth Kaunda and Rodger Chongwe SC in Kabwe.
“Don’t play Chachacha with the Police, they have guns”. Chiluba said.
Or President Edgar Lungu’s reaction to the FIC Report characterizing it as a witch-hunt: “Mfwiti, Mfwiti”, he described it.
So President Hakainde Hichilema’s remarks that; “a clique of thieves and hegemonists have been feeding off public resources from Independence” is another such airport tarmac, off-the-cuff, unscripted remark one wishes the President thought through or didn’t make.
“Did he mean what he said or did he say what he meant?”
Those airport interviews!
You spend the whole week explaining what the President said, what he meant and why he said what he said!
And people forget why he left or arrived in the first place but debate what he said at the airport.