OPEN LETTER TO FORMER PRESIDENT MR. EDGAR LUNGU
19/03/2022
REF: BE GRATEFUL AND SUPPORT HH’s EFFORTS IN UNITING ZAMBIA
Greetings to you Mr. Edgar Lungu. This letter is written to you sir to express my displeasure over your sentiments at the funeral yesterday.
Following your loss on the 12th August 2021 general elections, I have always wanted to give you a chance to breath and reflect on your life and if possible apologise to the Zambian people for bad leadership. I have never wanted to pick a topic to discuss you anymore not until your sentiments after the burial of President Rupiah Banda. May his soul rest in peace.
Mr. Lungu, you missed yet another opportunity in your life to behave like a statesman. Someimes I blamed your advisers who I thought were giving you divisive advice as an approach to politics. I was wrong after your shocking ranting yesterday, I now know you are originally divisive.
Sir, in case you have forgotten, it is under your brutal regime that we saw opposition leaders like HH being missed with live bullets just few days to the elections, blocked from campaigning and ill treated as well as threatened to be killed. It is under your government where we saw your thugs beating up anybody suspected to be anti PF. It was under your government where PF thugs walked into police stations and beat up police officers, it was under your government when we lost Lawrence Banda, Mapenzi Chibulo, Vespers, Frank Mugala, Kennedy Mudenda, Obed Bwalya and many others killed by your agents and you never said anything as a head of state tasked to protect all citizens instead you called for ceremonial prayer and fasting and some brutality took place immediately after your prayers e.g the murder of Nsama Nsama and Joseph Kaunda.
In addition it was under your control where we saw other tribes being flashed out of the Civil service for being perceived or coming from a certain regions and it was ok with you. To be honest with you sir, you are the wrong person to mention the word ” hypocrisy ” what you should have said as a former head of state if you had nothing to say was to thank all our visitors who came to mourn with us unlike the route you took.
From your sentiments it is clear that you are pulling the nation in a wrong direction just like you did during your failed reign where we got humiliated and abused. It is not a secret sir, if you won last election, Zambia was going to be torn apart. The evil seed of hatred you and friends planted was about to germinate but God said no and he spoke decisively through the Zambian people in all the ten provinces.
My advise to you sir is that, seek for God’s wisdom and humble yourself. You know how much damage you brought to our nation. You are talking about a dialogue when you castigated the church and foreign missions from conducting a genuine dialogue and imposed bill 10 on us. Thank God even the famous demon bill 10 died a natural death together with the PF arrogance.
Be grateful sir for the efforts President HH is putting in. If the man decided to go the PF way under your leadership alot of your hench-men and ministers would have been refugees by now because of abusing authority.The mess you left is just huge and seeing HH the man you threatened to kill Making efforts to unity the country it is a commendable job that any sane Zambian should applaud him for.
If you are that blind not able to see what the death of Mr. Rupiah Banda has done to the nation. Then, you are not worthy for the position of a father of this nation.
If you had anything to say, you should have just expressed shame at the way you failed to bring citizens who were not PF to mourn, celebrate and pray with you. For the first time you saw Kampyongo, Chitalu, Lusambo, Sean Tembo, Cosmo Mumba etc all sited looking ashamed and were not being roughed up by cadres. Sir, I am sorry to say this but, you are a true hypocrite and you have to change your ways pretty fast. Do not use such a solemn occasion to try and defeat the arms of Justice. If you and your ministers stole from the Zambian people, Mr. Rupiah Banda’s death cannot be used as an escape route.
Once again I advise you sir to seek for God’s wisdom please and be humble. I wish you all the best as you reflect on your sentiments.
Yours sincerely
Sikaile C Sikaile
Good Governance and Human Rights Actvist for Africa and Amnesty International