MILES SAMPA LOCATES “WHY ME” IN LIVINGSTONE
ABOUT the TIK TOK BOY FRANCIS KAPWEPWE aka WHY ME (WHY HIM that is just a poor boy and with no parents or family)
28th December, 2024
By Miles Bwalya Sampa, MP
My family and I have last in the few days of 2024 been looking to locate the incarcerated Tik Tok chap Francis Kapwepwe aka ‘Why Me’. He must be about 17 years old from the day he was arrested by the Police. We undertook to visit him over the festive period.
I have research and discovered that he called himself ‘Why Me’ because he survived a car crash as a child where both his parents and sister died. He lived to ask himself ‘Why Him’ survived. The police arrested him now close to year ago and don’t know or care what crime he committed. What I have been told is that is a bailable offense but lot been given one.
So as Christians and for Christmas, we obeyed Matthew 25:36 that asks us believers to visit and look out for those imprisoned. We therefore set out to fetch his whereabouts so that we can give him Christmas and New Year presents. Our first bounce was at the Kalomo prison in Southern province some 400 KM from the capital Lusaka. Days later we bounced at the Katombora juvenile prison in Kazungula district (some 400KM from Kalomo).
Today we located him at the prison in the tourist capital Livingstone (some 60KM from Kazungula ). This so when the suspect home town where he may have committed the crime is on the Copperbelt province some 900km away. When we got to this Livingstone prison gates; we were ordered to drive back some 200m back at some prison entrance stole to go get a written pass to see him. We found some senior prison officer who was polite and she gave us the pass. We drove back to the prison access gate to be allowed in like everyone else that had come to see their relative or person inside was being allowed in.
Suddenly this cocky sentry came from inside and told us that we needed permission from the Livingstone Police station to see Francis Kapwepwe (Why Me).
Being obedient citizens, my family and I drove to the police station about 4KM away to get the said permission. The policemen on duty after listening to why we had to see Francis the prisoner, told us it was OK and we could drive back and visit him.
Upon arriving at the prison gates for the second time, the sentry told us to wait and banged closed his entrance gate. Guess after some phone calls, he came back and said we needed a written letter (not verbal) from the police that we could see ‘Why Me’.
I am normally a calm person but about lost it at this point and asked him which part of the Zambian constitution they were using that states Prisons officers now report to Police stations. Once someone is arrested and handed over to Prisons authorities while case is in court, all rights over the suspect are with the prison authorities and not the Police, ZNS, Army or ZAF.
We freely go to the Country’s maximum Mukobeko prison in Kabwe where prisoners await or serve death or life sentences. What’s so special then about this boy that his rights to be visited by relatives, friends or well wishers is denied and more so over the Christmas period. Apparently no one has been allowed to visit him almost some 6 months now.
We left the Livingstone prison premises very saddened with all our little Christmas and new year presents we had taken for ‘Why Me’.
This is not fair on the little boy and whatever the offense, may the Republican President HH find it in himself to intervene and get this boy visited just like all other suspects or convicted prisoners around the Country. I have visited GBM and Bowman Lusambo and so why can’t I be allowed to visit this and not so very poor boy with nothing or no family to look out for him.
The last I read ok social media was that the boy’s crime was insulting President HH on one of his (Why Me) live beer drinking tik tok sessions. Boozing frank talk interviews are very common in the USA by the way. Then it’s on record that President HH abolished as offense for anyone that through their freedom of speech ended up insulting or disrespecting him. Us and the entire World applauded him for that. Not sure who his lawyers are if at all has any to detail me on what the big crime is that the young man WHY ME committed that warrants no one of us is allowed to visit him and more so to deliver Christmas goodies to him. No matter his crime or offenses (guilty or not), he is also a human, citizen of Zambia and has entitlement to basic human rights. Even P Diddy in the USA and despite his alleged dispeakable child abuse criminal crimes, he gets periodic visitations but Tik Toker WHY ME has had no one allowed to visit me for close to a year. Not even a simple people elected MP like myself.
Chandijisa alimwi chandichima loko (I am deeply hurt & irritated). It’s not too late to delete such precedents to our Country’s future generation. It’s a basic human right for any prisoner to be visited and more so over the Christmas period. Regardless of the hate or love for the little WHY ME, he is entitled to that right and it must be given.
MBS29.12.2024
Mathew 25:36
Miles you could have escalated to the officer’s bosses and if not happy call the minister who you know very well. You disappointed God by cowering away with the boy’s gifts. Just a little challenge and you take to your heels. How were you going to govern Zambia as President with such cowardice????? Shame on you and sad for the boy. And by the way Kazungula is 190km from Kalomo not the 500km you are talking about.
Miles once again you have shown how shallow you’re. The boy doesn’t need your sympathy but your parental guidance rather than your masquerades as a caring person.
In the first place you should have established why he’s in prison. Secondly you should have sort legal aid for him than taking sweets so as to be seen as caring politician. Sampa you should think things through rather acting emotionally. You not presidential materials but a masquerader. Ati pf president. Where?
This is the Zambia that Hakainde has created.
A police state.
Vote wisely in 2026.
Sampa is just seeking public attention which he wants to cumulative into political mileage. The coin has two sides and you have to check and see both sides. But Sampa is a one sided man who wants to make a name out of an indisciplined boy. Suppose in an unlikely circumstances, Sampa becomes the president of Zambia and the same boy uses the same words he used on HH, can he be happy? I don’t think so. Please let’s us not pretend just for the sake of gaining political mileage. Even when Hakainde relaxed the law by removing the defamation of the president clause, it does not become a passport for young men and adults alike to insult the president, that’s abuse of your rights. The President should be given the respect he deserves first as the president then as then as a husband and a parent. If the boy was never taught by his parents to respect adults or parents, then let him be taught by the prisons, I don’t have any sympathy for him, he is bad and indiscipline. So being in a correctional facility, I just hope that he will come out a changed person and become a good member of the society. Umuchinshi usuma.
The police should make sure that they teach this boy called WHY ME a very big lesson so that he should stop the habit of insulting tonga speaking people, when he was insulting he didn’t know that he is an orphan, he didn’t know that he survived an accident, does being an orphan gives him the freedom to start hauling insults to the elderly people which includes the president ? Let him be taught good manners since all his parents are deceased and there is no one to inculcate a good behaviour in him,let him be kept there for that the right place for him
The bottom line is, has the young man been charged and brought before a court of law to answer for his misconduct?
If not, then it is unfair and amounts to extra judicial punishment. If he was sentenced to serve a jail term, then justice has been served and the fact that he is an orphan doesnot matter. Being an orphan or sole survivor of a road accident doesnot qualify one to break the law.
I never expected this kind of injustice to be happening under his Excellency.
It is a very bad precedence irregardless of the presumed crime. (It’s a very bad development)