UPND MAY REALISE THIS WHEN IT IS TOO LATE

IT is so annoying that while President Hakainde Hichilema has consistently maintained that no cadre must harass innocent citizens, we are slowly drifting to where we were under the PF where our very survival was dependent on which political party we belonged to, perceived or real.

The standoff between Simon Mwewa and the UPND cadres over the disputed allay which the Kanyama UPND cadres claim is theirs is a sad state of affairs. From where we stand, there is no piece of land in any public trading place that is owned by any political party. 

When we hear and see the audacity from cadres claiming ownership to pieces of land, we then realise we are not far from what we were before the August 2021 elections, only that this time around, the tables have turned as the oppressed then, have now become the oppressors and this is how lawlessness begins.

Even the PF did not start at full scale, beating people with impunity and displacing those they deemed to be from the opposition. They started small before they took over everything from markets to bust stations and went as far as demarcating “plots” on some roads in Lusaka’s Central Business District (CBD).

The roads became their inheritance by virtue of belonging to the ruling party and the ordinary person and more so, those from other political parties, suffered the most. The UPND knows this very well. They know what they went through. They know this was injustice of the highest order and they know that the PF barbarism was among many atrocities that got them booted out of power.

However, today, the same people who had no trading places not long ago, are claiming ownership of pieces of land beside trading places. The same people who condemned such behaviour from the PF and used it as a campaign message to the people are back doing the same wrong things and justifying their actions by mentioning some of their leaders in their confrontation with those they feel are sitting on their inheritance.

So, when did these same UPND cadres from Kanyama buy this allay for them to start demarcating and selling stands to marketeers? What is the UPND hierarchy doing to cage these people because these are not aliens. These are people who are well known.

Their names are being mentioned and they care less about their identity being on camera. That was the reason they were challenging Chitambala to record them on video if he wanted. They know where they stand and our question to the UPND is; why are they silent when such things are happening if they truly mean well? Why is it allowing Oga and his zealots to take us back to the PF days? What have they done over this issue? What is the difference between them and the PF over the famous Kamugodi?

Our years of journalism have only taught us one thing; there is no cadre who can do anything without the blessing of their leaders. Cadres only attack when they are told to do so, knowing that they have the backing of those in leadership. We saw this under PF and we are seeing it again this time around under the UPND.

When PF cadres went on rampage, the PF party leadership either disowned them on face value by claiming they were from the opposition sent to disguise themselves as PF cadres so that people would think they were from the ruling party when not, or the party out-rightly justified their actions on account that they were provoked and only acting in defence.

When PF cadres went around harming people, people like Edgar Lungu seemed concerned and warned them publicly against violence but the violence never ended because that was the prescription of the party. It helped them to destabilize the opposition and shunt them in their cocoons so that they could not have any interaction with electorates. It served the party better and so, it could not stop its cadres from attacking the opposition.

Let us face facts here; those UPND cadres causing mayhem at Simoson Building have the blessing of some party leaders. On their own, they cannot gather that hyena courage to go and attack people. There is someone who is prescribing that to them and that is where they are getting the instructions from. 

Cadres do not attack unless they are told so by someone above them. Cadres work on instruction and truly, if the senior party leadership wants to know where the confusion is coming from, they should not look far from the leadership in Kanyama. They should ask Oga himself why he and his friends are behaving the way they are behaving and they will know the force behind this behaviour.

The party leadership in Kanyama knows everything and must be held accountable if the UPND truly wants to end the kerfuffle going on there. It is not rocket science. That is just the truth. It is so sad that while the President is talking about bringing back normalcy which we lost on the way, there are still individuals in the party’s rank and file who still believe in the politics of barbarism left by the PF. 

What the UPND has forgotten is that some of the people they are harassing today played a key role in instigating regime change. When people were fed up with the PF violence, they woke up and started speaking against the evils of the then ruling party, not because they are UPND members but because they felt annihilated by cadreism and it was from those consolidated voices that the UPND got traction before the election and won the election.

People were geared for change because of the number of voices that rose up to condemn what the PF was doing and by now, we were thinking that the UPND had leant valuable lessons that Zambians easily get infuriated when they are seen to be taken for a ride.

When you intimidate people long enough to a point of taking away their freedoms and rights, they act through the ballot box. That is what the Zambians have demonstrated since independence and these things the cadres are doing today are only tainting the image of the party and if they think we are joking, let them continue on that trajectory. They may only wake up to reality when it would be too late and they will end up losing the power they fought to get for years.

If some UPND leaders continue being careless and disregarding what the President is saying, then they do not love their party. It simply means that they are ready to destroy the UPND for their personal gain. They still want to bask in illegalities just to feed from it and care less what effect this has on the party.

We told the PF the same things we are telling the UPND today but their cadres called us names. They called us a hired entity by the opposition but what was their end? Where are they today? The carelessness from some UPND leaders may cost the party dearly.

Not long ago, we advised the UPND to cage its North-Western youth chairperson Bruce Kanema because he was tarnishing the image of the party in the area by advancing politics of instigating violence and the total disregard for the party leadership. Again, we were misunderstood.

Some people wrote stinking pieces to mock us. Today, the same man is serving a suspension but the question is what has changed from what we said that the party now sees fit to suspend him? Was his suspension not on the same grounds we advanced over a year ago and we were not heeded to?

The UPND can decide to ignore the wrong things that its cadres are doing today but the consequences will be grave. Gone are the days when Zambians could be taken for a ride. Those who do not want to listen will have themselves to blame. Zambians are tired of this cadreism but the choice to either end it or continue with the status quo is entirely up to the party.