SIKAILE Sikaile has observed that all PF leaders are above the law hence their protection from President Edgar Lungu.
On Thursday, State House told the nation that health minister Chitalu Chilufya who has been arrested by the Ant-Corruption Commission and charged with four counts of being in possession of property suspected to be proceeds of crime, is innocent in President Edgar Lungu’s eyes.
The State House statement came after a sustained public demand that Dr Chilufya be relieved of his duties to pave way for the legal process.
Reacting to State House’s statement, Sikaile, a good governance and human rights activist, said it was clear that President Lungu was protecting all corruption suspects.
“I am wondering what President Lungu drinks before commenting on public issues such as the rampant corruption in PF government. I’m very disappointed with his statement issued on 02 July 2020 titled: President Edgar Lungu will respect the rule of law. This statement is criminal and an insult to the people of Zambia. To be honest, this is the most useless statement I have ever seen coming out of State House in my entire life,” he said. “All PF leaders and their thugs are above the law, that is why they can steal public resources, promote political violence and tribalism, kill their opponents, threaten to break citizens’ bones for demanding for answers. If anything, Lungu is risking the lives of these junior officers by protecting Chitalu Chilufya and what happens when Chitalu Chilufya is proved innocent by PF controlled courts? This is a clear indication that we have no serious president in our nation.”
He wondered if President Lungu really understood the meaning of the term rule of law.
“Chitalu Chilufya’s bail application paper work was pre-arranged before his fake arrest and he was only detained for an hour. It is not long ago when I told the country that President Edgar Lungu was shielding Chitalu Chilufya from being prosecuted just like it was in the [Ronald] Chitotela case which ended up being an acquittal,” Sikaile said. “Does Lungu know what the term rule of law means? Just in case Lungu did not read or understand the meaning of the terms rule of law, the rule of law is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as: ‘the authority and influence of law in society, especially when viewed as a constraint on individual and institutional behaviour; (hence) the principle whereby all members of a society (including those in government) are considered equally subject to publicly disclosed legal codes and processes’.”
He said the rule of law was closely related to constitutionalism.
Sikaile said it was clear that President Lungu and his team did not respect the law.
‘’Fighting corruption in Zambia should be the president’s priority number one. But here we have someone protecting thieves even shamelessly quoting the Constitution of Zambia to justify their criminal activities. This is the same mouth that few months ago told the nation that he was going to fire all his corrupt ministers,’’ said Sikaile.
“As though those claims were not enough, recently he openly challenged his ministers to stop stealing money as he noted that their accounts had money whose source was difficult to trace. And today he calls these rampant corruption allegations on Chitalu Chilufya as mere allegations. And again, this is not surprising of Edgar Lungu. He did the same thing during the presidential petition. He refused to hand over power to the Speaker after his presidency was challenged by the opposition simply because he knew that he would lose the petition and his influence on security wings would be little. So he decided to assault the Constitution of Zambia by staying illegally in the office during a court case to date.”