GOVT NOT PERSECUTING KAMANGA

By Fulman Mukobeko

NO ONE is prosecuting Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) president Andrew Kamanga and the assertions that the Government is floating and aiding helping lawyer Keith Mweemba to take-over Football House is nonsensical, football administrator Elijah “Shenko” Chileshe has charged.

Speaking to The Scoop, Chileshe said it was mind-boggling that Kamanga’s team was allegedly cooking up lies against the Government to portray a picture that he was being persecuted because the Government was supporting Mweemba to try and get sympathy from the footballing community.

He warned Kamanga against plunging the Football House into a political arena where he allegedly was doing wrong things and mobilising people to peddle a narrative that the current happenings at Football House were a ploy to hound out Kamanga and replace him with Mweemba who served as President Hakainde Hichilema’s lawyer while in opposition.

“That is a blue lie. Government is not grooming Keith Mweemba. I just don’t know where they are getting those allegations from.  Those are Kamanga supporters who are saying that. I don’t know what they are fearing,” Chileshe said.

He however said Mweemba was a football administrator who was qualified to stand for FAZ presidency and that when and if he decided to stand, no one should demonise him on account of having represented President Hichilema when he was in position.  

“Mweemba qualifies to stand but to claim that he is being backed by the Government and that the Government is fighting Kamanga is nonsensical. The Government is not pushing anyone. The Government is just looking at these developments and I am sure it is even worried why Kamanga is behaving in the manner he is behaving,” he said.

He said Kamanga should not expect football administrators and the Zambians to watch while he was allegedly breaking the law with impunity.

“It is not the Government which is behind this. It is the Zambian people and I, as Shenko, am one of them. I want him to go because of the scandals he has committed. He is playing with taxpayers’ money and I am a taxpayer. So, he has to go,” he said.

He said it was football administrators that dragged Kamanga to court and not Government and that the issue had nothing to do with interference in the running of football affairs in the country but to stop the rot going on at Football House.

“Let them not involve the Government. Let them involve football administrators like us. We are the ones who are doing that; the ones that have taken him (Kamanga) to court and not the Government. We have gone to court because it is a last resort which can help us.

“Otherwise, if we had other means, we could have taken another route. We have courts in Zambia. We have rules and laws to follow in Zambia. There is a Constitution in Zambia. Let us forget about FIFA. If you have committed a crime it does not mean FIFA is going to protect you,” he said.