The Mambala of the Week Award goes to… Sean Tembo!
By Siphiwe Zulu
With a year between the next general elections, Zambian politicians seem to be in a hurry to outdo each other on social media – all in a quest for likes and sometimes meaningless engagements.
These people have become so desperate that even if it means telling lies, they will do it because to them, it appears, caution is secondary as long they get at President Hakainde Hichilema.
Characters who have never been known to support or play any sport are now posting pictures of themselves in national team replicas whenever Zambia is playing.
Then there are those who, seemingly drunk, made a Facebook live video to wish the Copper Queens luck before their last Olympic qualifier against Morocco.
Suddenly, the young ladies are their darlings—as if we have forgotten that when they held power, they paid the same players K50 as winning allowances compared to the $5,000 each the young queens now receive.
As if that’s not enough, we have seen all manner of Musisi dresses and skirts in the last few days, all because these politicians wanted to get political mileage on social media by associating with the Kuomboka ceremony and pretending to be the darling friends of the Lozi people.
Maybe someone needs to come up with a weekly award for our sometimes foolish politicians and call it the ‘Mambala of the Week Award’!
Surely, one Sean Tembo would immediately capture it for having told a lie that Chipolopolo legend Rainford Kalaba had died.
Without shame, this is what Tembo wrote when Kalaba was involved in an accident last week:
“Government is saying he is still alive only because they want the Minister of Sports to be the one to announce his untimely demise so that they can look important. Anyway, May His Soul Rest in Eternal Peace.”
Has Tembo seen the latest picture of Kalaba confirming that he’s alive or has he been following the expert updates indicating that the former TP Mazembe player is now able to talk and eat?
Will Tembo apologize for his careless excitement?
What’s disgusting about this post is that clearly, Tembo didn’t or did very little background checks before his reckless post. It’s actually sad that people may mistakenly think he probably got information from someone very close to him like his wife who is medical doctor.
But I find it hard to believe she would be that reckless and unethical, given her medical ethics, to share such information. So I take it that Mrs Tembi is very, very innocent in this matter.
Whatever the case, for me, Tembo wins the most foolish politician’s award in this whole Kalaba debacle.
If he has any shame, may that egg stick on his face forever.
Kalemba
