SENIOR citizen Joe Mwale says disgruntled Zambian youth should not fall prey to President Edgar Lungu’s despotism by going ahead to demonstrate against his poor governance.
He says PF leaders’ threats against citizens were a strategy to flare up emotions that would see them rise up and later frame UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema for arrest.
Mwale has appealed to youths to exercise patience because: “time is very near and the tide is very much on their side.”
“We are now in 2020 and next year we’ll have the country’s presidential and parliamentary elections. We are only a few months before we start 2021 and within this short period of time, we cannot afford to see our children losing lives needlessly,” Mwale said in an interview. “So my message countrywide is that exercise some patience – time is on our side. Exercise some patience between now and 2021 [elections]. You have exercised a lot of patience from 2011 when the PF came into government.”
He said in its continued quest to remain in power, the PF would not stop at anything, “other than seeing bloodshed.”
“[But] we don’t want to gift them the pleasure of seeing bloodshed in the country. So let all the youths exercise patience. Time is near! The tide is very much in our youths’ favour,” Mwale noted. “So, instead of going to march and protest and lose their lives [due to police brutality]…Once this chaos of bloodshed, the next stage, of course, this government will give trumped-up charges on the leadership of our party, like our leader HH (Hakainde Hichilema). They want to blame him for something that he is not responsible.”
Mwale, who has been in the USA for the past three months, indicated that he had seen what violence could do.
“I’m seeing it here every day, how people are fighting back being killed at the hands of a reckless police. I don’t want to see that happening in Zambia because of a brutal regime that wants to perpetuate its stay in power,” he said. “So, please I’m begging Zambians that time is very near and the tide is very much on their side. Let them re-think over the holding of the marching, protest and so on because that will be used as a pretext to lock up the leadership of our party, UPND. This is another scheme like the gassing where they want to frame the UPND leadership. That one (gassing) failed and the other excuse this desperate regime can use is to go the same way they did on the gassing of innocent citizens. They are threatening citizens so that they get annoyed…”
Mwale said it is PF cadres who would even start the violence but that: “the UPND leadership will be in for it.”
“So I’m saying let our youths stay away because there is a trap here where at the end of the day, it will be said that it’s the UPND leadership that has done this and so on. We know that the PF youths will start riots and the UPND will be pointed at,” Mwale said. “So, to our youths I’m saying patience is a virtue and let them stay away. Not much will be lost by them not demonstrating. Legally speaking, they have every right to demonstrate, as long as they have a police permit. But the words of Lungu of saying ‘they want to bring anarchy,’ he means business and they will definitely go after our youths and consequently the UPND leadership.”
Mwale is dismayed that the Lungu presidency: “wants to see more blood spilling from our innocent youths.”
“So I plead to youths not to fall for Lungu’s tricks; his time is running out, together with that of his minions. Time is running out for Lungu and his minions but our youths should not give this bloodthirsty regime any loophole which can be used as a pretext by Lungu to cause chaos in the country by shedding blood,” he advised.
“We know our youths are jobless but time is very much in our favour. All they should do now is to concentrate on mobilising their fellow youths in both urban and rural areas to obtain national registration cards and then register as voters in large numbers.”
He said youths’ energies now should be expended on mobilisation of their colleagues for the 2021 general elections.
“That will make a bigger difference for us to win political power in 2021, without losing any blood at all. Come 2021, HH will be in power. But in the meantime, let’s save the lives of our youths. I appeal to fellow senior citizens to speak to youths to restrain themselves,” Mwale noted. “I have experienced a revolution myself; the Arab Spring Revolution was started by youths. I was in Egypt when the riots started. I spent 25 days in Egypt…Any loss of lives now, at the hands of Lungu, is not worth it. Let this one pass.”
Mwale explained that what the PF leadership was trying to do typified the last kicks of a dying horse.
“The reaction from President Lungu that those will demonstrate will strongly be dealt with… We have seen bloodshed in Zambia with youths who protest. We saw how Mapenzi Chibulo was dealt with by the police, of course under the leadership of the PF government. Many youths have been killed like Grayzier Matapa, Lawrence Banda in Kaoma and others who have fallen victim to the brutal regime of President Lungu,” Mwale said. “This regime under President Edgar Lungu and his minions – the Bowman Lusambos, the Kampyongos and so on – is actually bloodthirsty. I’m saying we have had enough bloodshed and as a concerned parent and senior citizen, I fear for my grandchildren and my children and the Zambian youth that we have a regime that will not spare their lives.”
He noted that the PF government was using threats as a governance strategy and that such threats should be taken seriously.
“Who at the end of the day is going to lose? It is senior citizens because we’ll lose our children and grandchildren. I don’t want to see that happen and so here is my suggestion: My take is that where we have come from is far; the Zambian youth have suffered enough from 2011. Let them exercise patience,” said Mwale.