THE GREATEST TEST OF A NATION IS NOT WHO LEADS IT, BUT WHETHER IT LEARNS
There is something about President Hakainde Hichilema that many of his critics still refuse to acknowledge. Long before he became President, he paid a price. He was insulted. He was mocked. He was demonised. He was accused of things that were never true. Like Michael Sata Z”L, Hakainde Hichilema was also imprisoned. He was told he would never govern this country, yet through all of it, he remained standing.
He remained standing and he is still standing, not because he was the strongest man in Zambia. Not because he was the most powerful, but because he refused to become what his opponents wanted him to become.
That is a lesson bigger than politics. The tragedy of our nation is not that politicians disagree. Democracy was designed for disagreement. The tragedy is that some people still believe that the shortest road to power is through division.
Even today, after everything Zambia has been through, there are those whose entire political message begins and ends with tribe. Every conversation becomes tribal. Every appointment becomes tribal. Every development project becomes tribal. Every election becomes tribal.
How much longer shall we continue like this?
At what point do we finally admit that no tribe has ever built a road by itself, generated electricity by itself, created jobs by itself or developed a nation by itself?
A country cannot move forward when some citizens wake up every morning searching for reasons to divide their fellow citizens. We must be better than this.
Those who once sowed division should have the courage to repent. Those who profited from hatred should have the humility to change. Those who poisoned national discourse should have the decency to help heal it because Zambia belongs to all of us.
The future belongs to the child in Mongu, the farmer in Chipata, the miner in Kitwe, the trader in Kasama, the teacher in Choma and the fisherman in Luapula equally.
No citizen was created superior to another. No tribe was created superior to another. No region was created superior to another.
The Zambia our children deserve is a Zambia where leadership is judged by ideas, character, integrity and results, not by surnames, languages or provinces.
This, perhaps, is the challenge before us now. Not merely to win elections, but to heal hearts. Not merely to form governments, but to build one nation.
The politics of bitterness has taken us as far as it can. The time has come for the politics of nation building.
The time has come for reconciliation. The time has come for Zambia.
Zambia 🇿🇲 Forward Only! Backwards NEVER 👎
Saviour Chishimba
President
United Progressive People (UPP)