🇿🇲 WEEKEND DIGEST | Tonse fights on two fronts as passport row widens; Mundubile turns to court
Zambia’s opposition enters the weekend fighting on two fronts: one in the diaspora over cancelled passports, another in the courts as Brian Mundubile, Makebi Zulu and 16 others challenge their detention even as police add a fresh sedition charge to an already heavy legal burden.
The passport row erupted Friday after government revoked with ‘immediate effect’ the passports of former diplomat Emmanuel Mwamba, former MPs Emmanuel Jay Banda and Binwell Mpundu, former State House political aide Kaiser Zulu, academic Sishuwa Sishuwa and blogger Lillian Mutambo.
Home Affairs and Internal Security Permanent Secretary Dickson Matembo confirmed the action to ZNBC, while Government Gazette Notice No. 1421 of 2026 said the passports had been revoked for security reasons. The six were ordered to surrender the documents immediately, which government says are no longer valid for identification, travel or official use. Any continued use may constitute an offence.
It was a terse official explanation for a decision with sweeping consequences.
Then came the backlash.
Mpundu struck a defiant note, insisting Zambia remained his home and declaring: “No one will remove me from my Home or render me stateless.” He also rejected political conformity, writing that “politics is not a church where we should worship people.”
Mutambo was more combustible.
She accused President Hakainde Hichilema of trying to silence critics and described him as a “psychopath illegitimate President.” She linked the passport decision to her support for Mundubile and Makebi during the election and accused the administration of trying to “fix the voices” that backed the opposition ticket.
The language was raw, but the political message was unmistakable: those affected are treating the passport cancellations not as routine administration, but as an extension of the post-election confrontation
Amnesty International then raised the stakes.
Vongai Chikwanda, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, said the cancellations violated international human rights law and accused authorities of “weaponizing citizenship documents to target dissidents, activists, or political opponents.” Amnesty said the measure breaches freedom of movement protections under Article 12 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and called on government to reverse the cancellations.
The organisation went further, saying the decision risks trapping the affected individuals in “a state of de facto statelessness.” It placed the passport dispute within what it described as a wider post-election crackdown involving arrests, detentions and intimidation of opposition figures and other critics.
So by Friday evening, what began as a Gazette notice had become something much larger: a domestic political dispute, a diaspora confrontation and an international human-rights issue.
But the heavier opposition battle remains at home.
Mundubile, his running mate Makebi Zulu and 16 other petitioners detained at Kabwe’s Mukobeko Maximum Correctional Facility have asked the High Court to declare aspects of their detention unlawful and unconstitutional. Their petition challenges prolonged detention, restrictions on access to lawyers and relatives, transfers between facilities and alleged admission to correctional custody without lawful warrants.
Their legal offensive comes as police pile another charge onto the case.
At around 11:45 hours on Friday, Mundubile and Zulu were taken to Kabwe Central Police Station, formally arrested and jointly charged with seditious practices, contrary to Section 57 of the Penal Code.
Police Assistant Public Relations Officer Timothy Malumo said the two were returned to Mukobeko pending further police procedures and their appearance before court
The Zambia Police Service said it remained committed to “maintaining law and order, upholding the rule of law, and ensuring that all matters are handled fairly, professionally, and in accordance with the laws of the Republic of Zambia.”
The additional charge matters.
Mundubile and Makebi were already facing treason allegations. Now sedition has been added to the legal picture, meaning the opposition leaders enter the weekend not only challenging how they are being detained, but also confronting an expanding set of criminal accusations.
Their High Court petition, meanwhile, makes serious allegations of its own.
Based on an EMV report, three petitioners say they were moved from Mukobeko to Mwembeshi Correctional Facility and interrogated by Zambia Army Special Forces personnel. They allege they were offered clemency, state protection and reinstatement in the Army if they provided information incriminating Mundubile and Zulu. They further claim they were threatened with the loss of pension benefits if they refused.
Those claims remain allegations before the court and have not been judicially established.
The petitioners also say some detainees were held for days without being brought before a competent court, while others were denied access to lawyers and family members. Mundubile’s legal team has separately complained that lawyers were being blocked from seeing their clients at Mukobeko. Lawyer Chifumu Banda described the situation as a denial of a basic legal right and said the team would continue pressing for access.
This leaves the opposition in an unusual political posture this weekend.
The diaspora wing is fighting over passports, identity and political speech while the domestic wing is fighting over detention, treason, sedition and due process.
One battle is being prosecuted through Facebook posts, international rights organisations and public denunciations. The other is being fought through constitutional petitions, criminal charges and prison access.
For government, the official language is national security, law and order. For the opposition, the language is persecution, repression and constitutional abuse.
Between those two narratives lies the question likely to dominate Zambia’s politics in the coming days: where does legitimate state security end, and where does political suppression begin?
The answer will not come from Facebook alone.
It will come from the courts, from the evidence government eventually puts forward, and from whether state institutions can show that extraordinary measures are being applied according to law rather than political convenience.
For now, the opposition is fighting on two fronts: one across borders, one behind prison walls. And both are rapidly becoming tests of the post-election state.
Good morning, Zambia!
© The People’s Brief | Ollus R. Ndomu