Open Letter to Former President Edgar Lungu

Dear 6th Republican President, Edgar C. Lungu

I hope my letter finds you well.

You are probably wondering why you are waking up to a long letter when you are a mere former head of state.

Well, the short answer is that you left a mess, such a mess that the incumbent president, Dr Hakainde Hichilema (three honorary PhDs, and counting) and his disciples say that the buck doesn’t stop at him but at you for this mess. Debt, Lungu. Loadshedding, Lungu. K400 mealie meal price, Lungu. Exchange rate, Lungu. By-elections, Lungu. Honorary PhD gala, Lungu. Violence, Lungu. Corruption, Lungu.

Secondly, and ironically, you are the most popular politician in the country right now. From shame in Heroes Stadium on 24th August 2021, to thunderous and exuberant crowds everywhere you go. Like the Legend of the Phoenix. Man of the Moment. Dr Hichilema can’t string four sentences together without inserting in your name somewhere. When he gets some little sleep, he wakes up soaking wet. “It’s another Lungu nightmare, my dear Mutinta.”

There’s a way in which you are to blame for all the mess the country is in. Your borrowing pace was not matched with prudent spending, transparency, and repayment capacity. Many procurements had a stench of kickbacks around them. Government workers went years and months without receiving their terminal dues or salaries, while your cadres engaged in wanton conspicuous consumption. Those complaining or suffering were just bitter, disgruntled, lazy, or opposition hired guns.

You poorly managed the 2016 election. The Constitutional Court let you off the hook for what was, in the eyes of many reasonable people, most likely a rigged election. Then you unleashed the reign of terror on the opposition and the citizens through the Zambian Police Service and your party cadres. Innocent people died.

Your appointments were mostly from your ethno-regional base to the near total eclipse of the Zambezians.

Amidst the teargassing, incarceration, court cases, restriction of freedoms assembly, movement and speech, Hichilema’s numbers increased steadily beyond his Tonga and ethno-political auxiliary support base of Western and North Western Provinces. Your government’s brutality won him tens of thousands of sympathy votes.

Your harshness against your former allies like Chishimba Kambwili and Geofrey Mwamba led them to the UPND. Hichilema and camp quite possibly despised these men, but they adopted and deployed successfully a use-and-dump strategy. This helped cleanse Hichilema of his tribalistic entrance and sustenance in politics. Like a hungry chameleon, Hichilema camouflaged himself well long enough to scam the Bemba/Nyanja speaking voters into believing he was a benign nationalistic statesman.

The question I always ponder is, were you your own man as Republican President or you were a hostage of Michael Sata’s relatives and close associates like Mr Alexander Chikwanda and Mumbi Phiri? Your cabinet had a disproportionate number of Bemba-speaking ministers. Then you settled for Nkandu Luo as running mate. She was literally the last nail in your coffin. Unlike Levy Mwanawasa who quickly formed his own government and political persona, you were surrounded by Sata’s men and women. Though Sata wielded sufficient personal power over his people, you seemed to have folded under theirs.

Some of the people you inherited from Sata resorted to tribalistic politics against Hichilema. In so doing, they played into the hands of the Grand Master. Hichilema had over the years managed to radicalise a pliant ethno-political base into an unshakable voting bloc. If some Southern Province constituencies gave around 90-95% of the vote to ANC’s Harry Nkumbula, Grand Master had an easy job of stoking old fears and playing the ethnic victimhood card every so often it became an eternal truth in the minds of his supporters.

With the ethnic conviction and master-mind of Hichilema, Southern Province was impenetrable by any outsider challenging a chosen Bantu Botatwe. You stood little chance. It is much easier for a camel to enter through the eye of a needle. Even Levy Mwanawasa, a fellow Bantu Botatwe, could not penetrate. He lamented in Chikankanta: “We have only one MMD member of parliament in Southern Province and I have difficulties finding a person I can appoint as Minister of the Province. I gave you … a Lamba, then … a Luvale or Chokwe and you are lucky that I did not give you a tribe you dislike.”

Now you let members of the ‘disliked’ tribe run an anti-Tonga campaign. You even adopted one as running mate. Many Bembas were unhappy with this and decided to gamble with Hichilema. A gamble that has gone horribly wrong.
Where you were naive or weak and as a result condoned tribal behaviour, Hichilema has the accolade of being the reigning patron saint of tribalism in the world. He fans it and flourishes in it.

Contrary to his promises, the vast and disproportionate majority of key or close appointments are tribesmen and women or tribal cousins. It doesn’t take much imagination or observation to see that such appointments are likely to be followed by waves of appointments and promotions along ethnic lines. It is a crass, shameless slap in the face of Zambians who grew tired of ethnic exclusion under your regime.

Hichilema’s ethnic persecution has extended beyond those who served under your government but to businesses and activists from other tribes. Young people and old people critical of him are arbitrarily thrown into detention and kept there for lengthy periods of time without being charged.

Many are charged with dubious offenses and transported into Southern Province hinterlands for trial by Hichilema’s tribesmen. Where members of what Levy called the ‘disliked tribe’ are legally tried in Lusaka or Luapula, their cases are usually allocated to judges or magistrates from Southern Province or the auxiliary provinces. It all looks like an ethnic orchestra.

You may be wondering why I am accusing your successor of biased ethno-political persecution. Kafue Mayor, Buumba Malambo, has not received so much of a rebuke from Hichilema for her tribal remarks. Minister of Education, Douglas Syakalima said Bemba-speaking people of Luapula were mentally retarded. He was not fired, has not been reprimanded and his prosecution has been stopped by a judicial system that answers to Hichilema. His tribesmen accused of kidnapping Member of Parliament for Petauke Central, Jay Emmanuel Banda, are roaming freely without so much as a police call-out.

While the likes of Chishimba Kambwili and Francis “Why Me” Kapwepwe are facing jail time, those from Hichilema’s ethno-political group who insult you and other tribes daily without provocation are free angels. His ethnic appointees who are accused of incompetence or corruption are defended to the hilt.

The President threatens to strangle opponents and promises to rule by hook and crook. His Minister, Charles Milupi, incites party youths to violence against critics of the President. His political advisor, Levy Ngoma, has assured that those opposing the president will be trampled. These are Hichilema’s angels.

As a result of Hichilema’s abysmal failure to rectify your economic and governance shortcomings, he is very likely to lose the next election. Unless he rigs them. With your remarkable record of infrastructure development, Zambians found you wanting. Unfortunately, due to Hichilema’s failures at ethnic inclusion, even surpassing yours, the 2026 is going to be largely an ethnic census.

Because of ethnic appointments, he is unlikely to lose much, if at all, from his ethno-political bases. This will restrict Hichilema to the 2011 support base which came very short, behind Sata and Rupiah Banda. Many easterners and northerners in and outside government have realised or been exposed as useful idiots.

Many are victims of the UPND use-and-dump strategy. A few like Andrew Banda, Mutale Nalumango and Patrick Mucheleka are largely sidelined spent forces drawing their retirement pay checks as ethnic tokens. Nervers Mumba and Felix Mutati are self-representative eaters with not political clout.

This is where you come in. Despite sinister machinations by Hichilema against you and the Patriotic Front, your party remains intact and has probably grown! Only after your ousting have you suddenly emerged as your own man. With courage and character that can appeal beyond the PF family, you have a very rare opportunity to rectify your failures and leave posterity a worthy legacy.

Unite selflessly the opposition, the Zambians. Create an ethnic-inclusive shadow cabinet. Devise a merit-based, ethnicity-blind plan for inclusive recruitment and appointments in Zambia and abroad. This should not be about you or the PF bouncing back. It should be about Zambia bouncing back. A Zambia where a Timbuktu, Ushi, Nkoya, Ila does not feel any personal opportunities or misfortunes are down to their ethnicity.

If it takes an Ubuntu truth and reconciliation that indemnifies Hichilema and his government, we must consider it. End the cycle of ethnic retribution or exclusion, real or merely perceived. Without the cover of ethno-political impunity, we can open a new era of political and economic accountability, and a chance for a prosperous real One Zambia, One Nation.

By Osward Bwali