THE KAMPYONGO JUSTICE LESSON
Emmanuel Chilekwa
Whilst some are very happy and inordinately excited seeing this former Home Affairs minister dance the music he designed for others, the lesson is that public leadership is a relay. Don’t think that just because you have the relay button in your hand then the spectators are not seeing your relay mess or think that only you alone is the alpha and omega in the relay race of democratic life.
It teaches that to be happy in and after public service, just serve the people as you would like them serve you. Kampyongo had an opportunity to ensure police cells were up to humane standards if ever he could have thought that everyone is a potential resident of those custodial cells.
Public political power is good but when you have it, use it fairly and justly to the benefit of mankind.
Regrettably, what we saw in Shiwan’gandu, Eastern province informed us that God had to effect change last August in order to forcibly stop and halt what was becoming as a lawless society run by arrogant brutal cader mass who had no qualms about human rights respect and adherence to rule of law.
Whilst poll defeat is unpalatable, these PF leaders knew how bad they ran our affairs. A Zambian was not free to move, associate, speak or protest unless you belonged to the boastful, looting and corrupt Clique.
It’s good that we are where we are because normalcy is slowly but surely coming back where we can live as human beings regardless of who you support politically.
It is important to recall that what the defeated PF leadership is going through now is nothing compared to how they treated their competitors. So, they have no moral right to complain on how they are being treated – they asked for it.
At least PF leaders today are being arrested calmly and respectfully during the day, they are given access to bond or bail expeditiously and are being transported in decent air-con vehicles and can executively wave to their sympathizing supporters with a smile.
In their time, PF coxed you out of your underground bunkers in the middle of the night, threw toxic suffocating teargas in your house, suffocated your wife and children, beat up your workers to pulp, ransacked and broke your house and shitted on your bed and floor after looting your groceries. And when they got you to appear before court, you were bundled in open van littered with fresh human extra 140kilometres trip. Imagine that.
It was during Kampyongo’s reign that we saw then opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema escape death via the roof top at a radio station on the Copperbelt. In in Western Province we saw him taking refuge (like in a war zone) in the bush for hours.
And this was under Minister Stephen Kampyongo’s watch and directive. Not even in Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia or South Sudan would one see such kind of treatment. But such was the modus operandi in a CHRISTIAN, democratic and peaceful Zambia which is supposed to let her people soar so free like an eagle in its flight.
So on Kampyongo, my take is if he is guilty, let him experience the experience of being called to account for his time in public office. He’s not guilty until proven otherwise by the courts of law.
My stance has always been that looters, criminals and plunderers should see their day of justice. Bible is very clear, the measurement we use for others shall be used against us – that’s God’s way of dispensing equitable justice parameters.
Going forward, it’s a warning and learning curve to those of our leaders of today that they too, should always think that life has a TOMORROW and they should avoid the temptations of being vindictive, selective, unfair and brutal in the retributive quest to punish their opponents in the guise of fighting corruption, violence or injustice. What goes round comes around.