Chienge Independent MP Given Katuta says President Hakainde Hichilema has failed to heal and unite the nation because of his inability to forgive the past political attacks he experienced.
Featuring on Prime Television’s Matters arising on Saturday evening, Katuta said even the “One Zambia One Nation” motto that President Hichilema has been preaching about has cracks in between.
Katuta says if the President wants to unite the nation and defeat the current polarization based on tribe, ethnicity and regionalism, he must be willing to forgive and move on from the past.
She said recent UPND’s campaigns of unarchiving some video clips of the political attacks President Hichilema experienced under the PF regime before 2021 and widely circulating them on social media and traditional TV stations is meant to divide the nation more than building it.
“We need a leader who can forgive. You’ve seen our current President, now he knows it is an election year, everyday he’s just talking about whatever happened in Mongu (the 2017 incident that led to his arrest for treason), what happened in Ndola (when PF cadres forced Hichilema to abandon live radio programme in 2014) – that is not forgiving,” she said.
Katuta said history has shown that leaders who have fought for leadership have suffered similar attacks and persecution.
“Our President is unforgiving; if you’re forgiving, a leader cannot be talking everyday about what happened to him in the past – even trying to put it on some media houses trying to show that this is what happened,” Katuta said.
She challenged President Hichilema to start showing video clips of Zambia’s independence heroes such as Dr Kenneth Kaunda and Mama Julia Chikamoneka if the current UPND-sponsored propaganda is not just meant to weaponize and whip the emotions of UPND zealots.
Katuta advised President Hichilea to learn lessons from Nelson Mandela who had to forgive his tormentors who subjected him to a 27-year period of torture.
She explained that as Hichilema is avidly and repeatedly relieving what happened in the past and he’s showing that he’s hurting, his followers are also feeling the pain.
“Mandela was ill-treated worse than our current President. Now imagine if he walked out of Robben Island and started talking about what they did to him; even that prison warder who was urinating in his mouth, you think South Africa would be where it is now? I am pretty sure the white people would have been dancing. But when he came out, he understood that what he needed to do is bring the nation together and this is what we have been expecting from our current President but he has not brought us together,” said Katuta.
“The One Zambia One Nation motto he’s preaching has a crack in between and that’s why he has not brought us together. If you’re a leader who is concentrating on the past, it is very difficult to move forward as they say they want to move forward,” she added.
Is that why you spate onto a journalist face? Don’t compare yourself to Mandela. Just go quietly Chiengi, doesn’t need you. And you won’t be mist by anybody in parliament. You wasted five years in parliament fighting government for no reason, instead of taking development to Chiengi you chose to fight unnecessary battles only known to yourself. What a waste of time.