Sleepy Rupiah

Sleepy Rupiah
By Editor
Tuesday October 21, 2008 [04:00]

It is very unfortunate that when a very serious message was being delivered by our church leaders at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Sunday afternoon during the interdenominational thanksgiving service for the election process and commemoration of the 44th Independence anniversary, Rupiah Banda decided to sleep.

We have been wondering why Rupiah has been ignoring the many calls that many leaders from different walks of life are making on him and his party to desist from corruption, bribery and abuse of government resources.

It seems all the calls are falling on deaf ears because Rupiah is sleeping. He does not seem interested in engaging the public on any serious matters. He has chosen his path and he is remaining committed to it even when such a path could lead the nation to destruction.

This is a very serious statement for us to make and we do not make it lightly. Rupiah is playing with fire.

Rupiah has continued to abuse public resources and to ignore any calls that are made to encourage him to desist from this undemocratic practice.

Not too long ago, Caritas Zambia expressed exasperation at Rupiah’s abuse of public resources. This church organisation was unhappy with the fact that Rupiah had gone beyond abusing three government aircraft, now he was using the Ministry of Health vehicles to transport his image builders. As with everything else, Rupiah’s campaign did not consider this an important matter.

The church motherbodies – the Zambia Episcopal Conference, Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia and the Christian Council of Zambia – two days earlier also expressed their concern about bribery and corruption in the election and urged Rupiah to exercise maximum restraint in the use of government resources such as vehicles, public institutions and public media.

Transparency International Zambia stated that “the open display of defiance by the MMD despite the existence of an explicit Electoral Code of Conduct was not only worrying but also set a bad example for all other political parties”.

And on Sunday, Bishop Ignatius Chama, delivering the main sermon at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross where Rupiah was in attendance, challenged Zambians to speak out against practices of bribery and corruption that are manifesting in the campaigns for the October 30 presidential elections.

He advised authorities in government institutions to move away from favouring one political party over another in the use of state resources. Bishop Chama said “remaining silent about any practices of bribery that cheapens the precious worth of a citizen’s vote is to fail to contribute to making Zambia a unity of colours like a rainbow and to fail to face the future with hope”.

He urged Zambians to allow no chance for corrupt practices for corruption concerns everyone. Bishop Chama reminded Rupiah and others in attendance of a reading where prophet Isaiah told us “today that we should rule with justice and integrity and we should judge the poor fairly and defend the rights of the helpless”.

It seems all this does not mean anything to Rupiah. He prefers to sleep or ignore such legitimate calls. Anyway, this does not surprise us. We are told in Sirach 22:7-12: “Trying to teach a fool is like gluing a broken pot back together, like waking someone out of a deep sleep. Explaining something to a fool is like explaining it to a sleepy man; when you have finished, he will say, ‘what was that again?’

We mourn for the dead because they have no access to light. We ought to mourn for fools, because they have no access to intelligence. In fact, we should go into deeper mourning for fools, because the life they lead is worse than death. The dead are at least at rest. For seven days we mourn the dead, but a foolish or ungodly person causes a lifetime of grief.”

It is not our intention to insult anybody when we quote the Bible, but the Bible has a lot of lessons for us. In fact, our Religious Education taught us that a fool is anyone who refuses wise counsel. And talking about fools, we are told in Proverbs 18:2 that “a fool does not care whether he understands a thing or not; all he wants to do is show how smart he is”.

We are very concerned that Rupiah and his sponsors seem oblivious to the concern of church organisations and even civil society organisations regarding the abuse of public resources and corruption.

They seem to have taken a position that as long as they don’t respond to these matters, they are safe. They also want the nation to believe that anyone who takes them to task about their corrupt and abusive conduct is insulting or giving them unfair coverage in the case of the media. All the advice we have given Rupiah, to him amounts to nothing but insults.

Although we are concerned about the behaviour of Rupiah and his sponsors, we are not surprised. As we have kept saying, Rupiah has surrounded himself with people who are arrogant and incapable of admitting their own mistakes. That is why Proverbs says: “Arrogance should be punished so that people who don’t know any better can learn a lesson. If you are wise, you will learn when you are corrected” (Proverbs 19:25). We are further told that: “Get good advice and you will succeed…”

But to ignore and even sleep through the teachings of our religious leaders is to dig one’s own grave. Without the Church, without religious institutions, our country would never have been where it is today. At every turn, our church leaders have given guidance and advice to our political leaders on how to proceed.

In 1991, in that same Cathedral where Rupiah was sleeping during a sermon, Dr Kaunda and MMD leaders of that time met under the guidance of the Church to agree and map a new direction for the country. They listened and heed the advice and our country moved peacefully to a new political dispensation.

We need religious institutions and leaders to continue to be the conscience of our nation, a moral custodian and a fearless champion of all that is right. No one can deny the fact that religion is a great force and it can help one have command in one’s own morality, one’s own behaviour and one’s own attitude. And the simple lesson of all religions and of life itself is that, although evil may be on the rampage temporarily, the good must win the laurels in the end.

Rupiah and his sponsors must not take the Zambian people for granted. Our people are very concerned about corruption and abuse of resources and if Rupiah and his people want to be taught a lesson, they should continue ignoring the people on their concerns: “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).

We are saying what we are saying not out of malice or hatred for Rupiah and his friends but simply because we love them and our country. The greatest love one can extend to a person who is doing harm to himself and others is to stop him from doing so. Stopping wrongdoing is not an expression of hatred; it is not a demonstration of malice but of love and compassion. Every well-meaning Zambian should be worried about the type of politics that Rupiah wants to bring back.

It is clear that to Rupiah, money and power is everything. He will try to buy his way to the presidency if he can. This is what the pathetic James Lukuku bribery scandal means. This is what Rupiah’s defence of Chiluba and his corruption means. Rupiah has gone to length to try and justify his evil alliance with corrupt and rotten Chiluba using all sorts of pious arguments.

He says that in other countries, even prisoners vote which means he has no problems with criminals as long as they can give him power, as long as they can give him their support and votes. Let him go to Chimbokaila, Mukobeko and campaign there among many of our brothers and sisters whom poverty has driven there.

Chiluba is not the only person facing criminal charges who he should be sympathetic with. And because of his desperation for power, Rupiah went on public television to defend drug traffickers. Many of us thought that we had seen the last of the Chiluba brown envelopes, in fact Chiluba himself suggested that maybe we should try white envelopes, but Rupiah has brought them back. It seems with Rupiah around, the days of criminals are back.

It is not surprising that Chiluba today looks very happy and he has started attending state functions that he used to shun under Levy Mwanawasa – he is among friends with Rupiah and his sponsors. Truly, “when justice is done, good people are happy, but evil people are brought to despair” (Proverbs 21:15). And when injustice is being done, it seems, bad people like Chiluba are happy – their lonely days seem to be over with the coming of Rupiah on the political scene.

Unless civil society and all well-meaning Zambians stand up, the gains that we have made as a country in the past few years will be reversed. We will be taken back to brown envelope politics and other Chiluba-like practices that we fought so hard to defeat. We never thought we would see the day when any of our government leaders would go back to taking children out of school because of their political activities.

Rupiah is allowing this to happen and every well-meaning Zambian should ensure that this is stopped. This kind of behaviour is so archaic that it is shocking that Rupiah can allow it to happen today.

Just the other day, Daniel Munkombwe closed schools in Mazabuka so that he could campaign amongst teachers. If this is the way they think they are going to win elections, then they are in for a rude shock.

In the few remaining days, we urge Rupiah and his sponsors, including his image makers from America and Britain, to mull over things and consider the feelings of others, evaluate the advice they are being given by our church leaders and try to change course. It is said that “people learn from one another, just as iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17).

The choice is theirs because “death is waiting for anyone who wanders away from good sense” (Proverbs 21:16). Sleepy Rupiah should wake up to the realities that are prevailing in the nation today and stop wallowing in illusion.