Maravi

Character is very important

Character is very important
By Editor
Friday September 26, 2008 [04:00]

There is need for Rupiah Banda and his campaign team to re-examine their methods and make the necessary changes. Their apparent reliance on money and gifts to win support may backfire.

They got away with highly questionable methods in their campaigns to win Rupiah’s adoption as the MMD’s presidential candidate. It was easy to get away with it in an intra-party contest. But it won’t be that easy for them when it comes to inter-party elections.

The other week, we carried a story with pictures, showing Rupiah distributing sugar and mealie-meal as part of his campaign in Katete. This was clearly not proper for him to do. It was not only immoral for Rupiah to take advantage of our people’s poverty and bribe them with sugar and mealie-meal to vote for him but also contravened the electoral and anti-corruption laws of this country.

When we revealed this, we were accused of malice and all sorts of things against Rupiah.

They claimed that he was not campaigning but was merely performing a government duty. What government duty? Is it the duty of the Vice-President to personally distribute sugar and mealie-meal? And we reproduced the verbatim speech which accompanied Rupiah’s distribution of sugar and mealie-meal in Katete which clearly revealed that he was campaigning.

Rupiah and his friends have not admitted their poor judgment in Katete and have instead continued to deny what they did and accuse us of malice.

Today a very young man, James Lukuku, is accusing the old man – Rupiah – of paying him and his friends K15 million to endorse him as their favoured presidential candidate. It is sad to see such an old man being accused of dishonesty, of corruption, of bribery just to win a presidential election.

Lukuku’s accusations cannot be simply dismissed as lies. And they reflect badly on Rupiah’s character and personality. They also speak volumes about the characters and personalities of those who surround him.

They seem to be prepared to lie with ease. It is clear that William Banda has not been telling the truth about what happened at Government House as told by Lukuku. William Banda’s denials of the visit of Lukuku and his friends to Rupiah’s official residence have been contradicted by many who were there. So it is clear that William Banda and his boss Rupiah are hiding something, are not telling the truth, they are lying. This makes Lukuku’s claims more credible than their denials.

Surely, is this the way to launch a presidential campaign? Is this the way a man in his 70s should conduct himself? Does this behaviour inspire confidence?

There must be a lot of undesirable things going on with Rupiah’s campaign which if they came to light, the nation would be shocked.
Zambia needs an honest president. We need a man of honour, an ethical man to lead our nation. We need a president who is incapable of inventing a lie.

And whatever the expediencies of the moment, we should not allow our electoral processes to be prostituted by anyone to falsify the will and interests of our people to put into office the most inept, the most shrewd, the most corrupt, those who bribe the highest, rather than the most competent and the most honest.

We should strive to hold elections in which virtue opens a way for itself, merit prospers but conniving, greed and cheating fail.
It is not enough for us to say we are opposed to corruption, to the stealing of public funds and at the same time allow bribery, cheating, deceit and corruption in our elections.

These vices have to be fought with all the tenacity that we marshal in fighting other evils. In this battle against vices, there should be no quarter given anyone; we should call a spade a spade, and you should appeal to the honour of every citizen and sector. In the end, those who refuse to understand are going to self-correct, but in another way – they are going to be smeared with their own offal. We should fight this battle and we shouldn’t leave anything to chance.

But Rupiah and his friends shouldn’t forget that “what you get by dishonesty you may enjoy like the finest food, but sooner or later, it will be like a mouthful of sand” (Proverbs 20:17).

Anyway, sometimes it takes a painful experience to make us change our way and we hope things will not come to that for Rupiah and his sponsors.

This unbridled hunger for power is dangerous. And it may cause Rupiah to make serious mistakes which he may regret for the few remaining years of his life. But it is said that “wicked people are always hungry for evil; they have no mercy on anyone” (Proverbs 21:10). It is said that wicked people love the taste of evil, they bring on themselves suffering they try to cause good people.

And when justice is done, good people are happy, but evil people are brought to despair – “sensible people will see trouble coming and avoid it, but an unthinking person will walk right into it and regret it later” (Proverbs 22:3). But they are forgetting that it is said that if you plant the seeds of injustice, disaster will spring up, and your crookedness will end.
It is immoral to take advantage of poor fellow citizens just because you can; we shouldn’t take advantage of those who stand helpless and bribe them to act against their best interests. This is what bribing people to win an election amounts to.

If your methods are crooked, if you are always planning evil, you will earn a reputation for it because people will continue to accuse you of doing so. Even where you have not done anything wrong, people will always think there is something up your sleeve.

Clearly, a wicked person has no future – nothing to look forward to. And it is said that a good person who gives in to someone who is evil reminds you of a polluted spring or poisoned well.

If Rupiah really believes he is being falsely accused of all these things, then he shouldn’t worry – “curses cannot hurt you unless you deserve them. They are like birds that fly by and never alight” (Proverbs 26:2).

Something about Rupiah’s character is starting to emerge and we urge the Zambian people to pay a lot of attention to this man’s personality and make an informed choice come October 30. It is said that “fire tests gold and silver; a person’s reputation can also be tested” (Proverbs 27:21).

It will be important to follow up Lukuku’s claims and see where the truth lies – fumes and smoke appear before the flames do.
Some people ruin themselves by their own stupid utterances and actions and then blame others for it.

Labels: MMD, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 5:26 PM