HH is disrespectful – Rupiah

HH is disrespectful – Rupiah
Written by Mwila Chansa in Lufwanyama
Tuesday, October 28, 2008 10:05:27 AM

VICE-President Rupiah Banda has charged that UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema is a disrespectful young man who is attacking a helpless old man.

And defence minister George Mpombo, in an apparent reference to The Post, urged people not to read newspapers that had waged an evil psychological warfare against Vice-President Banda.

Addressing hundreds of residents who attended his campaign rally at St Joseph grounds in Lufwanyama on Sunday, Vice-President Banda said people should be wary of leaders who insulted their opponents.

"Have you ever heard any insult coming from my mouth?” Vice-President Banda asked. "Mr Sata has been insulting me everyday. Hakainde as a young man has no respect for me. So if they can do that to me who is acting president and head of state at the moment, what about you?" he asked.

He urged Lufwanyama residents to ask Sata or Hichilema to give them a profile of what they had done for Zambia.

"If you ask Hichilema, he will tell you that he is a rich man but what has that got to do with you and me? It is his business.

He is a young man who has got no respect. I am an old and helpless man but why is he insulting me on a daily basis?" Vice-President Banda asked. "Atigabile ma billion yake tili nanjala pano (let him share his billions with us who are hungry)."

Vice-President Banda urged the people to choose a leader whom they were familiar with as opposed to one whom they did not know how they would behave if given the realms of power.

He said he was the only candidate in a position to continue from where the late president Levy Mwanawasa left because he understood his dreams and how he felt about Zambia.

"As a man that he selected as his number two, I will make sure that what we discussed together continues," he said.

Vice-President Banda said the late president was passionate about improving the lives of Zambians living in rural areas and that he was aware that many youths in Lufwanyama were jobless.

He said over 400 licences had been given to prospective mining investors but that out of that number only four or five were actually carrying out mining activities and that those that had not started were mostly Zambians because they lacked funding to make their mines operational.

Vice-President Banda pledged to work with those Zambians and find a way of empowering them so that their mines could be operational and thereby create jobs.

He wondered why his opponents were contesting the presidential elections if they were not ready to accept the people's verdict.

"For me I say it that I am standing for these elections but if you don't elect me, I am willing to stand down and accept the verdict but they should also accept the verdict," he said.

Vice-President Banda challenged his opponents to say what they were afraid of and who would rig the elections and how.

Vice-President Banda said no one should start looking for excuses of not accepting defeat because a loss would mean that people had rejected them.

And Mpombo said Lufwanyama residents would best mourn the late president by voting for a person he worked with.

He accused some newspapers of not showing MMD’s meetings and just focusing on children.

Mpombo also said Sata was only fit to be a district commissioner and that Dr Kenneth Kaunda had already attested to that.

Mpombo further told Lufwanyama residents that a Sata or Hichilema-run cabinet would not include a minister who hailed from there because they had no parliamentarians from there and that if people voted for either, they would be excluded from the national cake.

And Lufwanyama MMD member of parliament Dr Lwipa Puma assured Vice-President Banda that most of the votes in the district would be his.

Dr Puma described Lufwanyama as a bedroom of the late president Mwanawasa and warned people that if they made a mistake of voting for a different party, all developments initiated by the MMD would stall.

And United Liberal Party (ULP) president Sakwiba Sikota said whatever promises Sata and Hichilema were making would not be achieved because the two lacked sufficient numbers in parliament to deliver on those promises.