TRIBAL BLACKMAIL MASQUERADING AS SCHOLARSHIP: A DANGEROUS NARRATIVE ZAMBIA MUST REJECT
Professor Jones Kasonso’s call for Zambians to vote strictly along tribal lines is not only reckless but intellectually lazy, politically poisonous, and morally indefensible. It is the kind of argument one expects from desperate political operatives, not from someone who carries the title of “Professor.”
To openly suggest that “Tongas should vote for HH while other tribes vote for somebody else” is not an analysis of Zambian politics; it is a crude incitement to ethnic polarization. It is an open invitation to dismantle the very foundations upon which Zambia was built. Let us be blunt: this is tribalism, raw and unfiltered.
Even more absurd is the claim that President Hakainde Hichilema “cannot win because Tongas are only 13% of the population.” This statement is not just wrong. It is embarrassingly shallow. Zambia has never elected a president on the basis of tribal population size. Not Kaunda. Not Chiluba. Not Mwanawasa. Not Banda. Not Sata. Not Lungu. And certainly not Hichilema.
Presidents are elected because they build national coalitions, not tribal ghettos.
To reduce President Hichilema’s electoral victory to Tonga arithmetic is an insult to millions of Zambians across all provinces who voted for him. It is a deliberate attempt to delegitimize a democratic mandate by weaponising ethnicity. That is not scholarship, it is propaganda.
What Professor Kasonso is effectively advocating is tribal segregation at the ballot box. By his logic, Zambia should abandon national politics altogether and convert elections into a census of ethnic enclaves. This thinking does not belong in a modern democracy, it belongs in failed states where ethnicity replaced citizenship. And let us address the hypocrisy head-on. One cannot claim to be fighting “HH & Tonga tribalism” while simultaneously demanding that non-Tonga citizens unite against Tongas. That is not anti-tribalism; it is reverse tribal mobilisation, cloaked in fake concern for national unity.
Zambia’s peace has never been accidental. It has been preserved precisely because generations before us rejected this kind of poisonous thinking. One Zambia, One Nation was not a decorative phrase. It was a deliberate rejection of ethnic politics. Those who now mock or undermine it are playing with fire.
Academics have influence. When professors abandon responsibility and start legitimising ethnic hostility, they embolden the worst instincts in society. History is unforgiving to intellectuals who provided “theories” that justified division, exclusion, and conflict.
Zambians are tired of being dragged backwards. The real issues confronting the nation are economic recovery, debt restructuring, jobs, corruption, public services, and national development, not tribal headcounts. No amount of ethnic fear-mongering will put food on the table or restore dignity to struggling households.
President Hichilema is not in office because of Tonga votes. He is in office because Zambians across tribes, regions, and languages rejected incompetence and chose change. That reality will not be erased by cheap tribal arithmetic. Zambia’s democracy will not be held hostage by divisive rhetoric, whether it comes from politicians or professors. Those who have no ideas resort to tribes. Those who have no vision resort to fear. Zambians must reject both.
By Chilufya Kasonde
Ilelanga News. January 12, 2026
Tribalism and divide and rule are some of the old methods that the past politicians had been using and were effectively working for them. But unfortunately such methods or tactics can not work any more. In modern politics people are well informed and vote with an informed decision. Those who are trying to use tribalism this time will be greatly disappointed. HH has embraced the whole country distributing resources equally. Imagine just four years ago, some of our Chiefs were sleeping in leaking grass thatched houses with raw bricks. But go there now, these Chiefs are now sleeping in magnificent modern palaces befitting Royal Highnesses. HH is doing this throughout the country without looking at the tribe of anyone. So tribalism has no room in Zambia, it just retards development. It should be replaced with one Zambia one Nation and one Nation one people.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAS GONE WRONG WITH THIS ONCE BRILLIANT INDIVIDUAL. I GUESS HE NEEDS HELP.
A DOG THAT STARTS TO BARK AT ANY FIGURE IN SIGHT IS CONSIDERED A RABBIED AND DANGEROUS DOG. THERE ARE ONLY TWO OPTIONS LEFT FOR SUCH A DOG,
1. CONFINE IT FOR TREATMENT OR
2. ELIMINATE IT TO THE INCENERATOR TO AVOID IT SPREADING RABBIES.