By Matthews Jere, UPND MP Livingstone.
Tuesday 9th June 2020
LUSAKA- AS a Member of Parliament for Livingstone, I wish to state that the Patriotic Front’s schemes to divide the country on tribal lines are indeed sad. Their relentless efforts to label the people of Southern Province as tribalists and ungovernable are extremely sad. What kind of leaders are these? Leaders are supposed to unite rather than divide, mend rather than break, preach peace rather than hatred, plant seeds of love rather than sowing discord.
Speaking for myself, the people of Southern Province are accommodating and welcome people from other tribes and regions. How else can you explain my election as councillor and subsequently MP for Livingstone, one of the most important constituencies and the country’s tourist capital, when I am a Ngoni hailing from Eastern Province?
We have people that have served as headmen, councillors and council chairmen in Southern Province but hail from other regions of this country.
In my constituency alone, we have Robert Wandila a Tumbuka from Eastern Province serving as a councillor for Zambezi ward, we have Mosses Simbaya from the Northern Province a councillor for Malamba ward and Felix Botha from the Eastern Province as councillor for Dambwa Central and Robert Chileshe, councillor for Kariba ward who also speaks bemba in council meetings.
In Munali constituency of Lusaka Province, Professor Nkandu Luo was voted for by the Soli people who are part of the tonga speaking people.
In Monze, we have a Bisa, Ruby Chanda from chief Kopa of Mpika, as headman and John Banda from Chipata, Eastern Province as vice senior headman.
We have councillor Sakala in rural Sikalongo ward who won an election against local and indigenous people.
Mazabuka has had Mr Stanley Sakala, who hails from the Eastern province, as mayor. He was voted in office as councillor by the Tongas and other tribes in the 2006 elections and was re-adopted by our party, the UPND, in 2011, after which he was elected mayor of Mazabuka beating five Tonga candidates in the process.
Kafue also had Thomas Zulu who was elected by indigenous people despite him hailing from outside Tonga land.
All these have been put in those positions on merit by the same people called tribalists at the expense of their own brothers and sisters.
I challenge the PF and its surrogates to name one Tonga councillor, or indeed any other tribe other than the indigenous people they have adopted and went on to win an election in their so-called strongholds of northern and Eastern Province?
It is most unfortunate to label these people tribal or to insinuate that they are, in anyway ungovernable by people whose longest stay in the province has been less than a week locked in a hotel room or guest.
It is painful for some of us who have settled in Southern Province and interact with these people everyday to hear them being labled as tribalists when we know that the opposite is the truth.
While the PF are the ones accusing others of tribalism, they have systematically excluded locals in their party leadership positions in Southern Province. Complaints have been raised from within the PF about only members from certain regions being given positions in the provincial leadership to the exclusion of locals.
We challenge the PF to explain why only people from Northern, Muchinga and Eastern provinces are in leadership positions at constituency and district levels in Southern Province in general and Mazabuka in particular.
For the first time in the history of Zambia, the country has noted with sadness, the retirement in national interest of people from certain regions of the country at the instigation of the PF government and its agents. It all seems to be a systematic purge meant to rid the the public service of people from these regions and remain with people from the northern parts of this country and Eastern Province alone. How sad!
As UPND, we believe in embracing people from all tribes. We believe in the unity and indivisibility of Zambia as a sovereign and unitary state where all citizens will have equal opportunities.
I earnestly appeal to the PF government to stop their tribal campaign and work towards uniting the country.
President Edgar Lungu has the capacity to end this tribalism but lacks the political will. My warning to him is that the tribalism he is promoting today will come back to haunt him tomorrow. None is safe when the seeds of ethnic division begin to bear fruit.
ISSUED BY: MATHEWS JERE
UPND LIVINGSTONE MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
