By Richard Aaron Ngoma.
It’s no longer a matter of ‘perhaps’ but rather when the PF will arrest UPND President Hakainde Hichilema for a bizarre allegation of corruption in the privitization of quasi government companies a quarter of a century ago. President Edgar Lungu is pushing hard for the prosecution of the opposition leader by hook or by crook, in what State House and the governing party (PF) insiders say is a well funded project, to ensure HH is precluded from the election process in the 2021 general election.
Remarkably, legal experts believe the case can never stand credible legal inquisition and that it would not be more worthy than the court paper it would be written on me.
“Once again, the desperation of the PF to fix Hakainde Hichilema has brought about the most laughable and preposterous privatisation allegations which have no ‘legal legs’ to stand on. The statement of the Minister of Information is equally riddled with errors of fact”, mused constitutional lawyer John Sangwa State Counsel, on his tweeter account.
But not so for President Edgar Lungu who is determined to stay in power after 2021, and who sees Hichilema as the only obstacle that must be cleared by whatever means necessary, including, according to some security sources, death.
Impeccable sources reveal the President will pressure the Chief Justice to allocate the case to a PF ‘sympathetic’ and surrogate Judge who it is believed will be paid huge amounts of money to conduct a shoddy and phoney court process that he will drag for months to keep HH locked onto the undertaking.
“This is not about privatisation. This is not about alleged criminality. This is not about corruption. They are simply preparing your psyche using these actions as the pretext. The truth is that what they want is access to my physical body so that they can eliminate me. Their plan is to arrest and then kill me. But do I have to die for anyone to be in power?”, wrote Hichilema on his Facebook page.
The past one week has seen the PF and their agents bombard mainstream and social media with screaming headlines of HH’s alleged criminality in the privatisation process of over 25 years ago. They unanimously demand for his arrest and prosecution. They claim Hichilema is no different from PF Cabinet Ministers who have been prosecuted for corruption in the recent past and subsequently handed suspicions express acquittals by the courts of law, and that HH would also be cleared if he were found innocent. The PF have whipped people’s emotions for the final onslaught but public opinion appears to be against them.
Social media has been inundated with the public objections of Hichilema’s accusations by the PF with signals of unrest registered in various ways. Unlike the Malawian revolution where the people had an extraordinary romantic relationship with the armed forces, the Zambian situation will only rely on the ballot in a very hostile environment that promises sparks and electoral disputes.
President Edgar Lungu has not been left behind in preparing the ground for a possible crackdown on the opposition. He told a carefully vetted team of Adventist pastors that paid a ‘courtesy’ call on him at State House, ‘to pray for those that might cause trouble when they lose elections in 2021’. The President was obviously talking about the opposition, but ostensibly and ironically perhaps, a prophecy about himself.