NEVERS MUMBA IS FORMER MMD PRESIDENT-HON. GASTON SICHILIMA
26th May 2022
Good morning members of the Press and thank you for making it for this brief but very important interaction with us as Operation Save MMD.
Operation Save MMD is a pressure group within the MMD which is pushing for justice to be done and have the party restored back to its founding being as a pillar of democracy in Zambia.
This Press Briefing is meant to deal with pertinent matters in the party and recent happenings which you members of the Press are familiar with. This Briefing, is also meant to assure all the genuine MMD party members countrywide that we have not abandoned our fight for restoration of democracy in our party and that all is being done to have the Mother of Democracy, MMD, take back its rightful position in the democratic political dispensation through having the right leadership in place that will respect the will of party members and dictates of the party constitution.
Members of the Press, I would like to clear the perception created by misleading press statements which were issued by Rev. Sambo and Dr. Cephas Mukuka whom I know were sent by Dr. Nevers Mumba on tenure of office of the MMD Party President.
From onset, I would like to state that Dr. Nevers Mumba is the former President of MMD and the party Constitution in Article 40 (1) is very clear and instructive on that matter, it does not need any debate as the constitution cannot be read in introspective. However, let me state that currently we have active Court matters which our colleagues are deliberately undermining by giving misleading impression to the party members and general public that all matters are over in court when not – this should be well noted to avoid further misleading the nation.
When there was an attempted Party Convention in March 2021 by the Nevers Mumba team, we applied for a court injunction which was granted and that Court injunction is still in force restraining our colleagues not to proceed with that convention.
Ladies and Gentlemen, with that injunction in place it means no one was voted for and as it stand today, they all just masquerading to call themselves whatever tittles and if not careful they will very soon masquerade in jail because what they are doing is contemptuous and as we speak there is contempt of court proceedings against Dr. Nevers Mumba, Madam Elizabeth Katongo Chitika and four others which includes Rev. Reuben Sambo in Lusaka High Court under cause number 2021/HP/0305 we are just waiting for a ruling on preliminary issues the outgoing former President Dr. Nevers Mumba raised which was heard on 16th December, 2021.
Members of the Press, this time it’s not about Hon. Sichilima or Operation Save MMD, it’s about the outcry from party members across the country including his handful followers who lost hope in him and have realized that he is killing the party together with some officials who have been working with him who are calling on Dr. Nevers Mumba to respect the party constitution and step down as his term of office ended yesterday, Wednesday, 25th May 2022 as per his own argument that he was elected on 25th May, 2012 which means by yesterday he clocked 10 years holding of MMD President.
Further, the current situation is not about Dr. Nevers Mumba or any other individual it is about looking at a big picture of salvaging the great party from going into oblivion and this is the reason why Operation Save MMD will not discuss Dr. Nevers Mumba as a person because we know he is immaterial to the future of the MMD. However, in the interest of the party we are calling upon our colleagues National Executive Committee, (NEC), members under the leadership of Dr. Mumba to reflect deeply and listen to majority party members and prevail upon Dr. Mumba to call for emergency NEC meeting where they should endorse what members are calling for, especially on the issue of amnesty to all party members and lift all suspensions and expulsions of all party members. This will allow a level playing field so that together we can start mobilizing the party through intraparty elections which will culminate to hold all-inclusive convention where members from both groups will participate in choosing leaders of their choice.
Members of the Press, it is shocking that today Dr. Nevers Mumba through Rev. Sambo and Dr. Mukuka is trying to mislead the party membership and other interest groups that between in 2016 and 2019 he was never MMD President but Hon. Felix Mutati. However, it is all in public domain that Dr. Nevers Mumba never resigned as MMD President and continued to pronounce himself as the President and he filed as MMD Presidential candidate for 2016 general elections which later withdrew after he realized that he will be humiliated. Dr. Mumba fielded three (3) MMD Parliamentary candidates which included his current National Secretary Ms. Elizabeth Katongo Chitika. He went into alliance with UPND as MMD President in 2016 and he further went on in 2018 and dissolved that electoral pact as MMD President.
Countrymen and women, since Dr. Nevers Mumba claims that he is a man of integrity and morality by stating that Hon. Felix Mutati was MMD President for three (3) years only, we challenge him to resign for now as MMD President for two years, so that Hon. Mutati or then his Vice can finish the two years which remained for him to make a full five-year term – then Dr. Mumba can come back to lead if he so wishes.
We are further shocked that today, ‘the high priest of molarity’, Dr. Mumba, has gone against the judgement of the learned Honorable Judge Madam Sharon Newa who nullified the election of Hon. Mutati as MMD President and restored his Presidency as at 2016.
Finally, I would like to state that politics of Dr. Mumba are so inconsistence and does not believe in give-and-take such that even when he knows what the provisions of party Constitution states, he has always been skating around to find a loophole to manipulate his way to continue his illegality the way he did in 2015 during the Presidential byelections when he imposed himself as Presidential candidate without being endorsed by any organ of authority in the party be the NEC or National Convention, he further created political drama in 2016 when he refused to call the regular convention which was due in April, 2016 defying the resolution of of a NEC meeting in 2015 and at National Policy Conference which was held at NRDC between 18th – 19th March, 2015. It is for this reason that I call upon all party members to rise and speak with one voice, we should not allow him to take the party to the grave as he has already indicated with his Vice President. Rev. Sambo in many of their meetings with officials that the “MMD is like having a dead baby in your hand”.
I THANK YOU