EDGER Chagwa Lungu got to plot one too easy. The opportunity came by as convenient as a yellow taxi in American movies. Hey, taxi and it stops; Lungu became president that easy in 2015.
And by the time the 2016 presidential and general elections came, people had not yet known Lungu’s kaja kamusango (the dark side of his character).
The only thing Lungu has achieved from a widely believed ‘stolen’ victory is ‘fish farming,’ from a pond at the State lodge which he believes shall be his retirement home.
We wish to remind him that Zambia’s first president, Kenneth Kaunda lived in State house and loved playing golf. Super Ken was a good golfer with a relatively low handicap.
But when KK’s time was up in 1991 at the dawn of a new democracy in Zambia, he left behind his pride; the most loved and treasured golf course at State house.
And when late President Frederick Chikuba aka FTJ took over the reins of power, he bragged that he was a tennis lover and would not utilise KK’s golf course at State house.
We do not recall witnessing FTJ playing tennis to prove his love for the game, but we remember seeing him at a netball tournament christened after one young female politician.
Fast forward; the late president Levy Patrick Mwanawasa beats Lungu as a good lawyer, a great president, a passionate famer and a visionary leader of a political party.
Instead of setting up a banana field at State lodge which is an official residential place for any sitting president, Mwanawasa grew bananas at his Teka farm in Masaiti district on the Copperbelt province.
But why did Lungu decide to set up his fish farming business at State lodge knowing too well that it’s a property of the Government of the Republic of Zambia?
If Lungu is considering State lodge as his favourite retirement home after the forthcoming humiliating defeat by Hakainde Hichilema and the United Party for National Development, he better wake up!
By now, everybody knows how ECL prides, loves and treasures his fish pond at State lodge with the same passion KK had for the golf course at State house.
Unlike Dr Chiluba, when the son of the soil, Hichilema takes over as President of the Republic of Zambia in 2021, Lungu’s fish ponds will be safe in a real farmer’s hands.
It’s not too late for Lungu to consider putting up some fish ponds at his farm, not a government property. We repeat, if he thinks State lodge will be his retirement home, he better think again.
Mwango
22/04/2020
Checkmate