Saboi Imboela – SI
THE ROLE OF AN SG IS HIGHLY TECHNICAL, SENSITIVE AND VAST- REDUCING IT TO JUST BEING MILITANT IS WORRISOME
The debate on who and what a Secretary General should be in the UPND makes very interesting reading. Whereas we always know what happens in other political parties no matter which party you belong to, the UPND debates now even take more centre stage because they are the ruling party.
There are calls to remove their current SG hon. Batuke Imenda. The people calling for that are mentioning all the things going wrong in the party and they are blaming all that on their SG. It is not clear whether the SG has been given the necessary resources but has failed to work or his failures are actually party failures. We are yet to hear that from his accusers, otherwise whoever replaces him will also fail to work according to their expectations if they do no make a distinction between party and individual failures.
Remember that, it takes a long time for people to believe in a political party. People called HH names, including people like Mwaliteta. And that time SG Imenda was there. Then today people are telling HH to remove his loyal SG. People must be joking. You all know how important hard work and loyalty are, but these virtues become more important when one is a leader. Today, when some people don’t believe in the NDC and me as a leader, I have others who believe in me and the party. At times when I feel that maybe I go back to my professional life and not our uncivilised Zambian politics, these people hold my hand and even see what I sometimes don’t see. Those are the people that leaders never forget no matter what.
I remember being in Western Province with SG Imenda, President HH and other UPND officials and he was there introducing our President then to the traditional leadership. People that were MMD begun supporting UPND because of people like hon. Imenda. Provinces do not just shift, they have their own sons of the soil who they love, trust and respect who go to them and convince them to support a certain party. So find out who some of these people are and what they did way before you ever found UPND attractive, before you start throwing stones. Because no matter how big your stones are, they will fall on deaf ears.
So yes you may have your opinion in terms of what you want, but do you know why certain people are chosen? Then to people throwing names around, do you all know what the role of the SG is and what this person is not doing right, apart from trying to make him militant? What is your personal opinion of what an SG should be and not what others are saying?
Gone are the days where you want the SG to be a riff-raff or a kaponya. SG Imenda is an Administrator, politician, Diplomat and technocrat. He is also a grassroot politician in case you didn’t know. You may not see him on the ground in other places, but he will surely be there in others. And no SG has been strong in all places. That’s why you have an entire central committee composed of leaders from all the 10 provinces of the country.
Some people will call the support tribal or that the opposition want a weak SG, as others have already started saying. But it is only people that believe in uncivilised politics that look at him as weak. Because for me, a more intellectually sound person is harder to fight that someone who just wants to throw stones. A lot or writing and correspondence also goes on in these parties, the SG as the CEO has a lot of writing and reading to do. But of course all that is forgotten in preference for people that can just stand up and make orders and decrees that are not backed by the Constitution or other laws. Anyway the battle is yours and we are just outsiders watching from outside.
Saboi Imboela
President- NDC