CHAMA AMERICA IS ONLY TASTING HIS OWN MEDICINE  

THE clobbering of Patriotic Front (PF) cadre Justine Chama popularly known as Chama America and his colleague Victor Kapungwe by their fellow PF thugs is a good reminder that violence begets violence and so is arrogance.

Actually, it is not even surprising because these are birds of the same feather. They are graduates from Edgar Lungu’s school of violence. These are the thugs that rained havoc in bus stations and markets and gave us sleepless nights while Lungu was at the Zenith of his tyrannical rule.

While we do not ascribe to the idea of resorting to physical violence in the midst of differences, this is a perfect description of tasting one’s own medicine.

At this point, it doesn’t matter who is inflicting injury to who. It is an issue of PF members tasting their own medicine. This is what they made innocent Zambians go through when they had power. We have not forgotten those who were murdered in cold blood for merely belonging to the opposition. We have not forgotten how members of the public who were believed to belong to other political parties were brutalised while their assailants went scot-free.

Under the PF tyrannical rule, one would be beaten and blamed for being beaten. Cadres could beat people at will and the same dissidents and their leaders would justify their actions by claiming that they were provoked and with people like Kampyongo in high offices, it became business as usual.

This same Chama America who is today licking his wounds after being clobbered blue-black by those he teamed with not long ago to maim others, was the darling of the PF during its hay days. These are the chaps that almost plunged this country into chaos. We were at the brink of civil unrest as a country but those who sent them defended them with their lives all because it did not affect them directly. That was the way Lungu and his friends wielded power. They were powerful and a law unto themselves.

They mercilessly terrorised Zambians with impunity. Anyone who did not agree with their agenda was an enemy. They rained havoc on innocent citizens as though they did not deserve to live. The majority of Zambians were living in constant fear of being beaten for belonging to the opposition or just being accused of associating with the opposition but karma, being the bitch that he is, comes back to haunt you at the right time for your sins and what was inflicted on Chama America on Friday was nothing compared to what he and his fellow dissidents did to the majority of Zambians.

We have orphans today whose parents would still have been alive today had Lungu and his honchos cared less about the lives of innocent Zambians as long as it served them right. Some people today are living with permanent scars from wounds inflicted by the same hoodlums who have turned against each other today.

While we agree that the police must investigate and bring to book all those involved in that embarrassing video that has been making rounds on social media, we hope the two PF camps now fully understand what they subjected us to because of their violence and this is a clear testimony that the PF is a violent party.

What the PF knows best is to propagate tribalism and inflict injuries on others. Their entire tyrannical rule was full of these incidents. They resolved differences through violent activities and it did not matter where you were. One could be at the market selling their merchandise before these cadres would be offloaded to descend on them. Our courts became a battleground for PF. We haven’t forgotten how Kambwili’s wife was stripped naked right within the court precincts for merely going to give solidarity to her husband. Even places like graveyards were no longer safe for anyone.  Others were getting beaten in their own homes and those that were entrusted with the responsibility of protecting citizens cared less about their mandate.

While human life was being lost, they engaged in the blame-game with the opposition. In short, they did nothing to stop the scourge because they created these monsters. Now, the same monsters are at each other because they can no longer eat together after losing power but in a country of laws such as ours, the police must be allowed to do their job diligently and without partiality.

It is therefore a big shame for PF surrogates to suggest that the police are only pursuing these thugs who belong to the Lungu faction because they attacked Miles Sampa’s camp. They still think Zambians will still buy into their nonsense of yesteryears where the law applied differently depending on who is involved. They are still living in the fool’s paradise where they feel entitled to breaking the law with impunity and going scot-free.

Only the devil knows what kind of a country we would have been living in had these mwankoles won the 2021 elections because they have not learnt anything from that embarrassing defeat they suffered. Even their rebranding, even if Lungu today was to wrestle the PF leadership from Sampa, would be a far-fetched idea because they have not changed. They are still as arrogant and violent as they were when they were walking in the corridors of power.

This is why the PF will never be remorseful for the wrong things they made Zambian go through during their tenure. The economy is struggling today because of the senseless debts they got us into but like fools, they are celebrating the current situation and using it to muscle themselves for a comeback into power using the challenges they created.

When Zambians advised the PF to stop the senseless borrowing, they called them bitter. Anyone who spoke about the debt situation when they were in power was branded opposition and was victimised. Today, the same people want to use the same challenges they left in power as the ladder to get back to power, but how? How shameless can one be that they can soil themselves with faecal matter and later blame its smell yet they are the ones who brought it on themselves?

We feel sorry for Chama America and his colleague and we wish them quick recovery but we would also like to remind Chama America that what he is going through today is what he made Zambians go through every day not long ago. The culture of violence and insults does not pay and we hope he and his fellow dissidents will sit up and realise that they have been wrong all along. It doesn’t matter which camp they belong to. What is wrong is wrong and they must change. 

On the other hand, criminals must realise that no one is above the law and so, we hope the police will bring to book all the eight people involved in this mischief and we hope they will be prosecuted and serve jail terms when and if found wanting. This is the only way the PF will learn that violence does not pay. It will be difficult to change these numbskulls because they ate through violence and it is only when they start rotting in jail one after the other that they will change.

No sane Zambian would want to go back to what the PF subjected us and whoever still believes in politics of causing mayhem must be caged and be taught the hard way that times have changed and they better behave or rot in jail. We cannot continue with the lawlessness that we were subjected to under PF and this is a lesson to those in the Government today that lawlessness does not pay. While they may have power today, they may not have it tomorrow and if they treat Zambians badly today based on political affiliation, the same shall be done to them when they leave office.

The PF thought they were a law unto themselves but look at people like Kampyongo, Mwila, Kambwili, and even Lungu himself… they have become shells of themselves. All the arrogance is gone because power lasts but for a night but Zambia will still continue, long after those in power leave. For now, let the PF continue tasting its own medicine. This is just a tip on the iceberg!