BREBNER Changala says nobody needs President Edgar Lungu anymore as leader of this country.
On Tuesday last week, Lusaka Province minister and Kabushi PF member of parliament Bowman Lusambo told off youths that were complaining about government’s decision to give gold mining to foreign companies instead of locals.
President Lungu later endorsed Lusambo’s ranting on Saturday.
Reacting to President Lungu’s support for Lusambo, Changala, a good governance and human rights activist, said President Lungu had become a corrosive dictator.
“I want to remind him, if he has not been told, that nobody needs him anymore as President of Zambia. He must be reminded further that he did not go to State House through a military coup, but through a ballot from the people of Zambia whom he has turned against. He was not put there by PF thugs, but by a collective vote of Zambians,” Changala said Sunday. “He is a dictator, and for that matter a corrosive dictator. He must get a leaf from his own Cabinet which has gone mute because they have realised that they have messed up. They have seen the damage they have caused to this country and they cannot defend it anymore.”
He observed that President Lungu was puffed up with power such that he was making decrees.
“My concern is the way President Edgar Lungu is running this country. It appears that he has totally forgotten where he is coming from. I am inclined to believe so because he has somehow illegally declared himself a de facto king of Zambia who has started ruling by decree. What he said yesterday (Saturday) about youths who are not happy with the way things are running is totally dictatorial of him,” Changala said.
He reminded President Lungu that the country was under a constitutional democracy where dissenting voices should also be respected.
“President Lungu has ignored the genuine voice of the youths who helped put him in office. He has decided to side with a buffoon called Bowman Lusambo. Zambians protested the appointment of Bowman Lusambo as minister, especially for Lusaka because he is a thug. But President Lungu did not see sense in why people protested,” he said further. “President Lungu must be reminded that Zambia is a constitutional democracy where power lies with the people. He can’t just unleash police on people who are exercising their rights and freedoms. He must be reminded very strongly that he has lost legitimacy to govern the people. People are just waiting for 2021 to cast their vote, to get rid of this burden. PF has been a costly burden to the people. We were duped into believing that we were voting for a lawyer, a humble leader; but this is not the case.”
Changala vowed to stand with other citizens in defence of the Constitution.
“We shall not just stand with our arms akimbo while President Lungu is abrogating the Constitution. But we shall fight to defend the Constitution,” said Changala. “President Lungu and the PF shall not be allowed to subvert the Constitution, but we shall rise with the full support of the youth to defend the Constitution. President Lungu should know that with what he is doing when he leaves office he shall go to prison.”
Addressing party cadres in Chirundu on Saturday, President Lungu said threatened youths, civil society organisations and anyone planning protests against attacks on freedom of expression that they would be dealt with.
“Those of you in Lusaka who are plotting to bring chaos by saying ‘we will demonstrate, no we will do this’, freedom of speech, freedom of insulting people, we will deal with you under the law. [Home affairs minister Stephen] Kampyongo is here, the police are here. I am saying this because there is a scheme by some people to bring confusion. So we are not going to allow that. Some people have put money aside to incite students from colleges and universities to begin demonstrating, creating violence and confusion because they want to bring this country to its knees so that people can lose confidence in PF,” said President Lungu. “People know that PF means well. People know that PF is a peaceful party. They want to provoke the police so that the police can react like it happened in America, they will say ‘no, we want change, we want change’. I think change yapa kamwa sivuta… because we will change you instead. This is a warning through you to the people of the Republic of Zambia because we have information that some people are ganging up under the name of civil society organisations to bring anarchy because they are saying freedom of speech has been threatened by the remarks to honourable Lusambo when he said to those two that ‘please apologise’. He said that apologise, they have not apologized…Can’t it end there? You want to take to the streets because honourable Lusambo said apologise? It does not make sense to me!”