Why is the UPND panicking over John Sangwa?- Sishuwa Sishuwa

Why is the UPND panicking over John Sangwa?

By Sishuwa Sishuwa

In a recent press statement titled “A Call to National Reflection”, constitutional lawyer John Sangwa said if he were to run for presidency, he would rather have his political campaign, much like our democracy, funded by Zambians than foreign donors or corrupt financiers. “A democracy paid for by outsiders tends to serve their interests, not ours. A democracy bought by money-lenders and power-brokers will never be free. But if we fund it ourselves, through our taxes, our institutions, and our civic commitment, then it will reflect our values, protect our sovereignty, and secure our children’s future”, Sangwa wrote in his call (see attached).

Today,  News Diggers is quoting Paul Kabuswe, in his capacity as Minister of Mines, telling Sangwa that “Zambians won’t fund your ambitions. I don’t understand which world he is coming from because Zambians cannot fund his ambitions.  If someone is a foreign funder and he genuinely wants to support your party without strings attached, why not? What is wrong with that? He is a wrong guy to fit Zambian politics”, Kabuswe said before advising Sangwa to “abandon his ka accent of his; let him go and talk to the people normally, not just speaking English in that accent”.

Even if ones completely ignores the disturbing lack of intellectual depth in Kabuswe’s response and his abject failure to apply his mind to Article 60 of Zambia’s constitution that calls for legislation on (i) the establishment and management of a Political Parties’ Fund to provide financial support to political parties with seats in the National Assembly; (ii) the accounts of political parties which are funded under the Political Parties’ Fund and the submission of audited accounts by political parties; (iii) the sources of funds for political parties; and (iv) the maximum amount of money to be used for campaigns during elections, how does it fall under the responsibility of the country’s Minister of Mines to respond to Sangwa’s call for Zambians to fund their democracy? What Sangwa said has nothing to do with mining and yet Kabuswe thought it was within his official mandate to address the question about whether we are “willing to fund our own democracy so that it belongs fully to Zambians and not to foreign donors or corrupt financiers”?

And since when did Kabuswe become the spokesperson of Zambians?  Why are UPND leaders panicking when it comes to Sangwa? The other day, the ruling party’s Lusaka Province chairperson, Obvious Mwaliteta, was quoted saying ‘Sangwa must first get a wife before standing as president’. Since when did having a spouse become a requirement for seeking election to any public office in Zambia? Of course, Sangwa is married and I have twice met the couple in public spaces this year alone. It seems, however, that the default position of UPND leaders, as Clayson Hamasaka showed yesterday in relation to his lack of basic knowledge of the country’s constitution, is to speak confidently even on matters on which they are totally ignorant, rather than asking questions so that those in the know can cure their repulsive ignorance.  

Others have gone as far as saying Sangwa should first tell Zambians which primary school he went to before he can stand as president. How does knowledge of one’s primary school advance public interest? Instead of responding to the fundamental issues that Sangwa raised in his call for national reflection, the UPND and its supporters are lowering the quality of public discourse by way of attacking the person and needlessly dragging his innocent family into a matter that has nothing to do with them (the family).  

Sangwa’s story, much like his professional record, is in the public domain. He attended Mutakwa Primary School in Chief Mungule’s area in Lusaka rural, then Riverain Primary School in Kitwe, Natwange Primary School in Chimwemwe where he wrote his Grade 7 exams in 1977. He then attended Kitwe Boys Secondary School, Mpatumatu Secondary School, Roan Antelope Secondary School, Luanshya Boys Secondary School and Kantanshi Secondary School, all on the Copperbelt. The high turnaround in the schools that Sangwa attended has to do with the nomadic professional life of his father, a civil servant who was constantly transferred by the government from one place to another. 

More ruling party functionaries have also alleged that Sangwa is not Zambian but Congolese and therefore ineligible to stand for president. This is another truckload of nonsense. First, Sangwa is as Zambian as they come and was born in Mansa on 29 December 1964. His father was Davies Sangwa from Mwinilunga district in Northwestern Province. His mother is from Luapula Province. Second, even if one of his parents were not Zambian (and both are Zambian citizens by birth), he would still be eligible to stand for election as president because the parentage clause was removed from Zambia’s constitution in 2016.  

Although all this information about Sangwa’s life has been in the public domain since April 2003 when Amos Malupenga published his profile in the Sunday Post (a profile that was later reproduced in Malupenga’s 2022 book Conversations with Memorable Personalities), most UPND leaders do not know it because many of them – with Hamasaka, Kabuswe, and Mwaliteta serving as prime examples – hardly read.

Like most praise singers, they are largely functional illiterates with limited intellectual capacity and short attention span. They appear to be more at home listening to songs and watching TikTok videos and to be allergic to reading anything longer than a short tweet. Their extraordinary appetite to comment on subjects they have neither read nor taken time to understand is only matched by their clear aversion to reason, their boundless energy to defend the indefensible, their unqualified hostility to anyone critical of the Dear Leader, and their sycophantic and ingratiating attitude towards him.

Argh, ba UPND! Criticise Sangwa and his proposed ideas or solutions to Zambia’s foremost challenges, but consider leaving his family out of your attacks