The classic definition of sacred is something that is so special that it has to be treated with reverence, respect, is inviolable, highly valued, important, and most of all, holy and often worthy of religious veneration. One of the inviolable rules in our society is that when you have a major tragedy that causes widespread death and destruction, we should pray, and behave with deep empathy, restraint, caution, sorrow, and offer heart-felt help to survivors. But this is hardly the case with Presidential candidate Trump.

Hurricane Helene caused widespread devastation in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee in the United States of America. The death toll has risen to 227. The day after the storm, President Biden set the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) into action and said he would visit the area to survey the damage and so did Vice-President Harris. They expressed caution and restraint because they did not want their footprint during their short tours to get in the way of the very crucial, urgent and important work of first responders, rescue crews, the state, and local emergency officials. What did candidate Trump do?

He went to Georgia alright which he had the right to since he is a Presidential candidate. Then his conduct while he was there went sideways. I could see in the video online that he went to a brick building the hurricane had destroyed. He may have summoned what looked like 30 workers donned in emergency uniforms to collect bricks from the rubble to construct a makeshift press conference podium. His handlers had Trump read his speech which he read in a halting manner. All of this was alright and probably what any candidate would normally have done for the most part.

The press and other reporters these days tend to sane wash some of the things Trump says with a serving of both-sidism. They call them “untruths”, “disinformation”, and “misinformation” which are wrong terms. Trump simply tells lies.

After 9 years, lies are what we should say he tells. At that press conference he lied that President Biden and the Federal government were not doing anything to help the hurricane victims. He said Biden could not even contact the Republican Georgia Governor Kemp about providing help for the hurricane victims. Georgia Governor Kemp the following day had to correct the lies and said at a press conference that President Biden had contacted him and offered to help with anything the state needed. By that time, the damage from the lies had been done. This is characteristic of a narcissist sociopath; he has no regard for the the truth during this sacred moment nor the damage, the despair, and perhaps even death he might have caused to others because of his lies. During Trump’s January 6 insurrection, 5 police officers died and hundreds were wounded because of Trump’s big lie that he had won the 2020 election.

None of the terrible things I am saying about Trump bring me any joy. Like perhaps many millions of Americans, I am exhausted of Trump lies, numerous scandals, and vile things he unleashes, deepening the moral sewage on all of us every minute of each day as soon as his lips are moving or he posts something on his social media. But his lies not only harm many people like he did in Smithfield in Ohio about illegal immigrants eating cats and dogs, but we are now exactly 30 days to the Presidential elections on November 5. His lies could result in the tragedy of his being elected by accident like was the case in 2016.

For example, FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell pushed back on Trump lies.

Trump had lied that FEMA was running out of money to aid its disaster relief efforts, because the White House had misused the funds “on illegal migrants coming into the country.” Some of the numerous terrible things Trump has done might sound minor and picky to his MAGA supporters and some Republicans. Congress sent Covid pandemic relief checks to millions of Americans. Trump at the time insisted that when these government checks were printed, his name should appear on the checks as President. This was very unusual as any other normal Presidents would perhaps not have insisted on doing this. But since Trump is a cunning narcissist, he had to do it.

I have seen online at least 5 random interviews of voters who argue that they will vote for Trump because he wrote them the pandemic checks. These voters had looks on their faces that wrongly said Trump wrote the checks personally from his account since he is a billionaire. Are you kidding me? These 5 voters might represent millions of low information misled voters who might not be well educated but will be voting next month.

If you are a Republican and MAGA supporter, you might be thinking I will vote for Trump which will “trigger the libs”. You will be destroying your own country if you vote for Trump. If you are a diehard Republican or MAGA supporter, hold your nose and vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz next month to save the country. We have to end this nightmare of hostile divisiveness that has been in our country since 2016.

By Mwizenge S. Tembo, Ph. D.

Emeritus Professor of Sociology

Zambia is member of the Commonwealth, largely driven by the United Kingdom, for its former
colonies, including some countries in Africa, Caribbean and Asia. Africa makes up more than a third
of the Commonwealth of its 56 member states. Next month, this year, its Heads of State, including our
own President, will be electing a new and 7th African Secretary General, to replace the existing Ms.
Patricia Scotland from Caribbean, in accordance to geographical rotation.

On Wednesday 11 September 2024, at 14:30 hrs Zambian time, the Commonwealth held a debate of
its three candidates from Liberia, Dr. Mamadou Tangara, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Ghana, Ms.
Shirley Botchwey, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Lesotho; Mr. Joshua Setipa who had quit his position
at the Commonwealth secretariat as Director to stand for the position, at the. Chatham House,
London. I listened to the debate chaired by Zeinab Badawi, BBC Broadcaster.

The absence of a Zambian candidate baffled me because, I thought it was global competitive
opportunities like this that Zambians should take advantage of in our search for global integration and
competitiveness. Candidacy was open to all member states, and, as always, they’re informed through
their High Commission offices in London. Noticing the advertisement, I personally took it to a
prominent Zambian who, I thought was suitable enough to excel, therefore asked him to seek
government support. However, he and I were disappointed after we learnt that our discussion was in
fact taking place long after the deadline for candidature submission.

The deadline was not inside the advertisement but was instead placed in a different attachment that I
could not see at the time. But more importantly, the deadline was known by government through the
High Commissioner. So, I personally cannot understand why our country was not part of the hugely
missed opportunity.

The topic of the debate was, “The future of the Commonwealth.” I’m only being honest to state that at
the end of the debate, my conclusion is that if my proposed Zambian was part of the debate, he’d
have competed favorably. The candidates did their best but, if I were government, I’d ask the
Commonwealth to re-advertise and ask for more names because three is simply not democratic for so
many African member states, and for the Commonwealth whose core business is to promote
democracy and inclusiveness. During my work as United Nations staff, I travelled to all the fifty-five
African countries, mixing with highly qualified and experienced Africans that I think, should be an
integral part of the candidature.

In the future of the Commonwealth, the three rich members, namely, the UK, Canada and Australia
are likely to continue to preach the familiar chorus of democracy, human rights, security and peace,
good governance enshrined in freedom of speech and assembly, rule of law, gender, and protection of
the environment. For poor members from Africa, the future of the Commonwealth is largely a carry-
over of poverty, disease and hunger; global marginalization in infrastructure, technology, trade,
innovation, digitalization, foreign direct investment, and perhaps more importantly, global
marginalization of human-capital.

We highlight this because it’s at the heart of all other factors that determine social and economic
development, including the factors we have mentioned earlier that deter Africa’s progress. Human-
capital determines the quality of infrastructure, technology, trade, innovation, digitalization, foreign direct investment and many other factors that have led to economic surge in some nations and
marginalization in others. The view of Professor Kavwanga Yambayamba and mine are that the future of the commonwealth means that it must become innovative enough to create centers for child development in each member state aimed at transforming early childhood development (ECD) in order to prepare them to
integrate in the global landscape and create wealth not only for Africa but the world.
The formative years of a child's life (0-5 years) are critical for innovative development. It is
scientifically proven that investing in proper nutrition, parenting, early childhood education, caregiving, and an appropriate physical environment during these formative years enhances the development of the cognitive or mental function of an individual. This is because the brain during the under-5 age exhibits neuroplasticity (high adaptability), making the brain very flexible and can easily adjust to the external environment. It is during these formative years when executive functions of the brain are established and strengthened to enable an individual attain the highest level of performance in the later years. In fact, this is what we mean by “human capital.”

It is scientifically established that heavy investment in the above-mentioned factors results in a well-developed cognitive function of individuals, leading to high level of thinking, reasoning, understanding,memory capacity, resilience, problem-solving, including socio-emotional skills.  This has beneficial effects not only on the individual but on the entire society as can be seen in developed countries.Such individuals become successful academically as well as in all spheres of human life. Such
individuals are able to create, innovate and solve problems using more critical thinking than ordinary.
In developed countries and Asia, this investment has created immense wealth from human capital.
  
We are hopeful that the Commonwealth has a great opportunity to plant a new seed of hope that may
germinate into an endless political, social and economic transformation of member states similar to
what we envy of some Asian nations. While the planters of that seed may never live to enjoy the
sweet fruits of that seed, they will however be remembered forever by the future generations. That’s
what developmental leadership is about, and that’s’ why we think the Commonwealth’s support for
this project comes at the right time.

In concluding, we wish to state that Africa’s problems are not myriads of challenges such as the ones
listed earlier. Neither are they dishonesty, disease, overreliance on one commodity export, global
marginalization, low global commodity prices, lack of foreign direct investment, infrastructure and
technology, insecurity, wrong mindset, failure to implement plans, lack of commitment to work, hunger,
poverty, high food prices, high fuel prices, load shedding, corruption, unemployment, bad leadership,
lack of financial and other resources or any other adverse situation being experienced.

For us these are mere symptoms of an underlying fundamental problem. The fundamental problem of
Africa is INADEQUATE HUMAN CAPITAL – human beings who are competent; human beings who
have the knowledge, the skill and positive attitude or growth mindsets; human beings who are critical
thinkers; human beings who can create and innovate; human beings who see a broader picture and
welcome new ideas; human beings who are resilient, have the courage, do not give up, and can solve
problems from different perspectives; human beings who embrace challenges and turn possibilities
into realities……, the inadequacy arising from inadequate investment in the entire human capital
development value chain –a part in this unfortunate situation.

It’s appropriate to state that most of the things that we Africans fail to do (or do negatively) are largely a result of inadequate human capital, arising from. Inadequately developed cognitive function. This limits our ability to catch up with countries that are progressing. It limits us to compete globally. It makes us be overtaken by countries like Viet Nam in global exports of manufactured goods. It reinforces in us the penchant to celebrate small and irrelevant economic and other wins. For example,
a Head of State declares a public holiday when his citizen wins a gold medal while the Chinese,
winning 24 similar medals are upset for not winning it all, and are probably ridiculed. There’re many
examples of cognitive malfunction, including concentration lapses and their impact on our daily lives
which’s one of the biggest problems in Africa.

Addressing this for Africa, is what the future of the Commonwealth should be about because this will
have a multiplier effect of solving what are often perceived as Africa’s problems, which we’re naming
mere symptoms of a bigger problem.

By Edward Chisanga

It’s said that if you want to hide information away from an African, hide it in a book. The reason is simple……we either have a poor reading culture…..or don’t even bother to read at all!

This is probably the reason why immediate past president, Edgar Chagwa Lungu; typical of him as a sly and cunning politician, finds it convenient for him to sneak in lies and propaganda in his political discourse, every so often, to achieve the objective of deliberately misleading the masses in his quest to bounce back to power using hook or crook!

During his so-called address to the nation the other day, ba Lungu had the following questions for his successor, “What did he find when he assumed office? What was the price of mealie-meal? Fuel? Electricity? Fertilizer?Cooking oil? Sugar? Volatile exchange rate?”

Since it would be folly for the President to waste time responding to such innuendos as he’s focussing on resuscitating an economy which is in a comma, we shall seek to provide answers to the above by providing a comparative analysis of the performance of our economy from the tenure of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), the Patriotic Front (PF) right through to the current administration.

MMD deposed the mighty United Nation Independence Party (UNIP) from power in 1991 on the backdrop of economic malaise, food shortages coupled with sky-rocketing prices of essential commodities.

By the time citizens resolved to seek a ‘divorce’ from MMD and flushed the proverbial “red card” after a union dating back to 2 decades; the Rupiah Bwezani Banda administration would leave behind a buoyant economy – affordable prices of essential commodities, a stronger currency and of course, stable inflation.

Consider the economic outlook below as the country headed towards the 2011 general elections:

The Micheal C. Sata led Patriotic Front (PF) ‘stormed’ the political scene with a convincing slogan: “more money in people’s pockets, more jobs and lower taxes!”

However, barely 10 years in power, citizens had had enough of PF. Caderism, stagnating economy, rampant corruption and gassing of innocent citizens during their sleep etc was too much for them to bear. They would turn-up in record numbers and say “zwaa” to ba Lungu (give him marching orders!)

The following table definitely indicates that ba Lungu left the state of the economy in intensive care…..worse than what they inherited from MMD:

UPND has been at the helm for merely 3 years. The ongoing war in Ukraine which has seen the disruption of supply chains such as crude oil, fertilizer and the grain, and obviously the effect of climate change which has exacerbated power supply hasn’t worked in favour of the Hakainde Hichilema led New Dawn Administration. This has given the opposition, particularly ba Lungu a blank cheque to mercilessly and viciously attack the government or indeed mislead the public that UPND has lamentably failed to meet the aspirations of our people.

However, if we take into account the state of our economy today compared to what they found in place, UPND is definitely on course to take our people to the Promised Land. Consider the prevailing economic environment in our country at the moment:

Finally, we’d like to present to you our esteemed readers a comparative analysis of price increases, exchange rates and state of inflation during the rule of all the 3 regimes. For the record, we must confess we didn’t rely on our own humble wisdom to arrive at these figures. We had to engage an expert, whom we shall simply refer to as Munsanje, to help us work-out the figures and present water tight facts to the public:

As they say, figures don’t lie. We shall leave it upto you dear readers to judge for yourselves as to who really messed-up our beloved nation.

Prince Bill M. Kaping’a
National Coordinator – HH Mpaka 2031 People’s Alliance