Keep Your Hypocrisy Away, Sishuwa Tells President Hichilema

Keep Your Hypocrisy Away, Sishuwa Tells President Hichilema

…I pray that you will not be demanding to officiate the funeral now, drawing on your recent experience of giving sermons in Catholic Churches and of insisting to attend funerals of individuals whom you had little regard for while they lived….

●You can lie to yourself and to your zealot supporters but you will never deceive those of us who are familiar with your breathtaking hypocrisy.

Dr Sishuwa writes in response to President Hichilema’s comments on the death of Archbishop Telesphore Mpundu:

Hello Mr Hichilema! You must be pleased to have another prominent critic of your poor leadership gone. 

You are very fortunate sir: death keeps taking away your most prominent critics – Edith Nawakwi, Edgar Lungu and now the retired Archbishop of Lusaka Telesphore Mpundu.

I pray that you will not be demanding to officiate the funeral now, drawing on your recent experience of giving sermons in Catholic Churches and of insisting to attend funerals of individuals whom you had little regard for while they lived.

Even the picture you used to accompany your post tells a story. Because your recent relationship with him had turned sour, as it has with many of those who supported you in opposition but now regret it owing to your dreadful performance in office, you had to go back all the way to 2021 to find a suitable picture that was taken after the mass that the retired Archbishop conducted for you at State House soon after your election.

What followed next is well known: Archbishop Mpundu, as he did to your predecessors whenever they strayed from the course of good governance, regularly criticised your leadership actions. In response, you and your supporters, as you have repeatedly done to the Catholic Bishops and to other well-meaning critics, denounced the man of God. Today, now that he has died, you want to pretend that you are sorrowful? Please cut us some slack, Mr Hichilema. You should have a sense of shame, sir.

You can lie to yourself and to your zealot supporters but you will never deceive those of us who are familiar with your breathtaking hypocrisy. The truth that must be stated is that Archbishop Mpundu, who contributed to your election, died very disappointed at what you became in office, at the tragedy of your presidency. In one of his final public interviews (I have attached it to this post for ease of reference), Archbishop Mpundu correctly branded you as “a master of corruption”, “a dictator who does not listen to anyone”, and a failure who “should not be allowed to go [i.e. remain in office for] more than one term.”

I can also now tell you that the Archbishop was extremely sad that you are now trying to send civil rights activist Brebner Changala, another person who helped you ascend to public office, to prison on a transparently silly charge of sedition using Magistrate Davies Chibwili. This issue really disturbed him. Mpundu died with his extremely high regard for Changala, whom he affectionately called Saint Brebner. As you know, Changala is the man who visited you in prison in July 2017 when you were unjustly arrested on a bogus charge of treason and whom you requested to ask the Catholic leadership to help secure your release from prison. Thanks to his efforts, you were released.

Today, this is the same Changala you are determined to send to prison for criticising your leadership over the abduction of then Petauke constituency member  of parliament Emmanuel Banda when the people whom the victim named as his abductors, who include two of your aides, are roaming scot-free. Do you see why the Archbishop was disappointed in what you have become? What kind of a person are you, Mr Hichilema? You are very poor at managing relations.

If you cannot own up to your failings, please continue with your hypocrisy and leave us to mourn the Archbishop. By us, I mean the people to whom the Archbishop was a hero before 2021 and after 2021 when you and your supporters took turns to denounce him for the crime of pointing out the pitfalls of your leadership. Should you insist on attending the funeral, I pray that the Catholics do not allow you to speak so that we may be saved from listening to more of your repulsive diet of hypocrisy.

Every country has, at one time or another, a religious leader who acts as the conscience of the nation and with the strength of conviction that is respected even by their fiercest critics. For Zambia, and since the deaths of Cardinal Medardo Joseph Mazombwe (2013), Bishop Paul Francis Duffy (2011), and Bishop Dennis Harold De Jong (2003), that honour belonged to Emeritus Archbishop of Lusaka Telesphore George Mpundu.

A dignified and consistent advocate for justice, the 78-year-old was among a very small number of the Zambian clergy who are incapable of finding peace in an environment in which human suffering is manufactured by the politicians in power. Throughout his public life, Mpundu consistently raised both his voice and the quality of his argument to speak out against human rights violations, corruption in government, attacks on democracy, intentional polarisation, and the indifference of the country’s political leadership to the plight of many. It is as if he was spurred by the knowledge that to be silent in the face of these human-made sins is to actively participate in sustaining the status quo.

In addition to bearing sympathy for the elites in power who found his ability to speak out on issues of public interest unbearable, the man of God refused to be bullied into silence by successive governing parties’ familiar tactic of accusing anyone who criticises the government, however well intentioned, of being an opposition supporter. A highly courageous and principled individual, Archbishop Mpundu served as an inspiring example of the kind of clergy Zambia or Africa needs – those with a deep sense of responsibility and a conscience that is restless in the face of injustice, bad governance, human rights violations and the degrading poverty that surrounds them.

Archbishop Mpundu fought a good fight.

Source: https://x.com/ssishuwa/status/2055649500677517634?s=20