JONAS Shakafuswa has warned those in the PF government that “guns will turn against them” due to the annoyance and frustration of many Zambians.
Shakafuswa was a UPND member of parliament from 2001 to 2006.
From 2006 to 2011, he was elected on the MMD ticket and during that period, president Levy Mwanawasa appointed him finance deputy minister.
He was later appointed deputy minister of the then Ministry of Science and Technology.
Former president Rupiah Banda later fired him in February 2009.
In the 2011 general elections, Shakafuswa, who stood on the UPND ticket, lost to MMD’s Dr Patrick Chikusu.
Shakafuswa then bounced back in Parliament in February 2014 on the UPND ticket after winning a by-election, following the death of Dr Chikusu in December 2013.
In the 2016 general elections, Shakafuswa stood on the PF ticket and lost to UPND’s Patricia Mwashingwele.
On PF cadres’ violence against some radio stations in Muchinga Province and what he thought was the instigation, Shakafuswa said: “what we should look at is that this country has gone to the dogs and not just to the dogs [but] has gone to the streets.”
“PF got most of its people from the streets and unfortunately it has put the same people from the streets into leadership and then they have brought street law to be the national law,” Shakafuswa said in an interview.
“We have relegated the police to be spectators. Today police have got no integrity, no respect at all! If the police act in a professional manner, one is retired in national interest, one is frustrated until they retire.”
He noted that the police service had been reduced to a cadre extension of the PF.
“So, today the police are just watching to say ‘this thing has to change.’ I don’t blame the police! I have got evidence where a minister orders to release weapons to cadres in a bye-election because bantu babo (it’s their people). Now this is the best which people can give for our country! It’s the worst,” he said. “I have respect for the professional men and women who are in the police. But today they have been relegated to be spectators because they can’t do their professional work. This is because their commandant is someone who is from the street. This is very wrong.”
Shakafuswa indicated that the behaviour of PF cadres now made him wonder how political campaigns in 2021 would be because: “I can’t be intimidated or scared by idiots.”
“If it means fighting to our last breath to bring sanity to this country, we’ll do it. And let them be warned! But I’m not doing it for a party [but] I’ll do it for my children and their children. If that’s what it takes to bring sanity to this country, we’ll do it,” said Shakafuswa. “Let them be warned! What they don’t realise [is that] it will be like Malawi where the guns will turn against them because people are annoyed and frustrated. Let them be warned!”