Maravi

Don't give us a govt of crooks

Don't give us a govt of crooks
By Editor
Wednesday January 23, 2008 [03:00]

It is said that one cannot plant tomatoes and hope to reap oranges.
It can also be said that if we put into office crooked people, corrupt elements, thieves, we cannot expect to get an honest government at the end of the day. In the end, we get the government we have planted; in the end, we get the government we deserve.

We shouldn’t deceive ourselves that these elections in themselves guarantee us everything. They actually guarantee us nothing. What they offer us instead is the opportunity to succeed as well as the risk of failure.

They are then both a promise and a challenge. A promise in the sense that if we work together and dialogue with each other carefully, we can come up with a leadership that will enable us to govern ourselves in a manner that will serve our aspirations for personal freedom, economic opportunity and social justice. They are a challenge because the type of leaders and government we will get out of these elections rests upon our shoulders as citizens of this country and no one else. That’s why it is only we, the citizens of this country who vote in these elections. We must take responsibility for the fate of our country.

We should not be irresponsible in the choice of political leadership of our country. We should only elect people whom we trust, whom we can give our businesses, our homes and other personal affairs to manage on our behalf. We should not in any way decide to hire people for public service whom we cannot consider in our own personal undertakings.

We support chieftainess Malembeka’s call for Zambians not to allow a thief or a crook to be our next president. If we don’t respond favourably to this call, as chieftainess Malembeka has correctly observed, we will plunge Zambia into worse poverty and it will be difficult or impossible for the country to see a quick reversal of fortunes. Again, as chieftainess Malembeka has advised, we should be kind to ourselves and ensure that we put into office honest, upright individuals and not crooks or thieves.

No country, however rich, can permanently afford to have quartered upon its affairs dishonest people who promise all sorts of things but in the end decline to do the duty which they were called upon to perform. And, therefore, it is one of our prime duties as citizens to ensure that crooked elements come nowhere near political power, public office.

Those who fail to do this and support and vote for crooks will be putting burdens upon the people which they cannot bear. We know our people’s trials; and God forbid that we should add one grain of trouble to the anxiety which they bear with such patience and fortitude by putting them under the stewardship of wolves, hyenas and jackals.

Corrupt people, crooked elements do not enrich every member of the community – they are only there for themselves. We therefore submit that the true test of progress is not the accumulation of wealth by crooked means, by corruption in the hands of a few but the elevation of a people as a whole. Only a few people benefit from corruption.

The selfish and dishonest pursuit of wealth corrupts the manhood of men. And this is what propels them – after having raped the nation – to seek to lead it so that they can accumulate further wealth. It is not to serve the community. How can they all of a sudden become kind to a nation they have robbed, they have plundered and want to be its saviour? This doesn’t make sense.

What chieftainess Malembeka today is calling upon us to decide is almost like a Sermon on the Mount, it is the question of whether we will worship God or Mammon. The present day seems to be a Mammon-worshipping one. We propose to dethrone the brute-god Mammon and to lift our people into its place. Deception is always a pretty contemptible vice, but to deceive the poor is the meanest of all crimes.

All we can say is – political leadership should not merely be an enjoyment, a fulfilment of an ambition or even a pleasure, it is a stewardship. If this is the case, what type of stewardship can be expected from a crook, a thief, a corrupt element?

We may not have so many people in our politics who are not corrupt, who are honest and sincere but we surely have enough to do the job of governing our country. And there is absolutely no need for this country to be deceived, to be duped into choosing criminals, crooks, and thieves for political leadership.

At many stages in the advance of humanity, conflict between men who possess more than they have earned and men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day, it appears as a struggle of our people to gain control of the affairs of their country from thieves and crooks who twist the methods of government to enrich themselves and defeat popular will.

There must be no neutral ground to serve as a refuge for corrupt and crooked politicians.
There has been much talk of the Jacob Zuma example being extended to Zambia. First, Zambia is not South Africa. We had set our own standards long before that country gained its freedom. Second, we are not going to borrow bad examples from our neighbours. Yes, we have a lot to learn from South Africa and they equally have a lot to learn from us.

We dumped an honest politician, KK, and replaced him with a crook, a thief – Frederick Chiluba. The result of all this is clear for everyone to see. We know what the law is. It doesn’t mean that every acquitted person is clean. We saw in the O. J. Simpson case that criminal proceedings can fail to get a lawbreaker convicted. OJ was acquitted of killings he had committed. But he has just led to accept a civil claim and pay compensation for the same ‘crime’.

In politics it’s not just a question of convictions, there are also moral issues to consider. Moreover, we are not a colony of South Africa who should be passed on to even the rotten practices of that nation. Let’s show the South Africans that Zambia is the land of upright men and women who do not accept corrupt elements to lead them, to manage the affairs of their country. Again, in the end we will get a government we deserve.

Labels: CHIEFS

posted by MrK @ 6:35 AM