Maravi

Rupiah, listen to advice!

Rupiah, listen to advice!
Written by Editor

IF Rupiah Banda has difficulties listening to, and accepting, what the Catholic bishops are saying about the way he is running the affairs of this country, he should at least pay some attention to what his friends are saying.In our edition of yesterday, we carried a story where Dr Rodger Chongwe questioned the way Rupiah is running the affairs of the country.

Dr Chongwe urged Rupiah to rethink his ways of running the country because there have been too many problems in his administration since his election four months ago. He observed that Rupiah's government lacked transparency, good governance and clear policies on the way forward for Zambia. And Dr Chongwe cannot be said to be an enemy of Rupiah because he supported his candidature in last October's elections.

Today we are carrying a news story in which Edith Nawakwi is expressing dissatisfaction with the performance of Rupiah's government. Again, Edith is not an enemy of Rupiah. She went all over the country campaigning with, and for, Rupiah.

There are many others who supported Rupiah last October but today are expressing dissatisfaction and disappointment over his conduct of the affairs of this country. Some are on record, others are not. And this feeling is spreading across the nation.

We know that Rupiah and his government have denied the very accurate observations made by the Catholic bishops on a number of areas of our national life. They have accused them of doing all that in aid of the interests of an opposition political party they support or are sympathetic to. And it's not difficult to guess which political party they are talking about. It is Michael Sata's Patriotic Front.

But can Dr Chongwe or Edith also be accused of supporting Sata and the Patriotic Front? Certainly not. And this being the case, it calls for Rupiah to mull over things and consider the feelings other people are expressing on his poor performance, on his ineptitude, on the intolerance and corruption of his government.

We have also been very critical of his performance and conduct. For us, we started seeing this during elections. And we did not spare him the due criticism. Last year Rupiah kicked off his presidential election campaign on a very divisive line, encouraging or promoting tribalism and regionalism. At the very beginning of his campaign, Rupiah told the people of Eastern Province to chase away other presidential candidates who did not hail from that region of our country if they went to campaign there. He told them to tell them to go back where they came from.

And in Petauke, Rupiah engaged in electoral corruption. He was distributing sugar and mealie-meal bought with government money to the people he was seeking votes from. And his whole campaign was characterised by very high levels of intolerance; they were threatening to sort out people who opposed them after the election. And The Post was top on their agenda for retribution after the elections.

So these things people are complaining about today are not new with Rupiah and should not come to them as a surprise. Today Rupiah is trying to accuse us of hatred for him simply because we have always tried to stop him from doing wrong things and using wrong methods in his politics.

Rupiah knows very well that we don't believe in the law of hate. We may not always be true to our ideal, but we believe in the law of love, and we believe you can do nothing with hatred. We would like to see a time when our politicians in this country love their fellow human beings without regard to their political affiliation. We will never make progress in this country until that time comes.

There is need for Rupiah to start doing all those things which are necessary for all our people to live and work together to move our country forward. And if true Christianity rests on love, it is equally true that meaningful politics rest on love. It is only through love that those in politics, those in leadership can attract loyalty from their people. As we have stated before, loyalty is a sentiment, not a law. It rests on love, not intimidation. Rupiah’s government seems to rest on intimidation and blackmail, and not on law: since it demands no love it can evoke no loyalty.

Things are not well in the country. Dissention is growing by the day. And if Rupiah truly wants peace and harmony in this country, the best thing for him, the primary requisite is to eradicate the cause of this dissention. It is only in this way that harmony can be restored among our people. It is said that the supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils. And that by the very order of things such evils are not demonstrable until they have occurred: at each stage in their onset there is room for doubt and for dispute whether they be real or imaginary. Only reason and urgent action will avert it.

Rupiah should know that this country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless it's a good place for all of us to live in. Therefore, there is no need for him and his friends to behave as though they own this country simply because they have been contracted by the Zambian people to manage the affairs of the state and government. There is need for them to start basing their politics on morality and not on crooked methods and practices. They should start teaching themselves and their followers that politics should be an expression of a desire to contribute to the happiness of the community rather than of a need to cheat or rape a community. Rupiah should teach himself and his minions that politics can be not only the art of the possible, especially if this means the art of calculation, intrigue, deceit, lies, secret deals and pragmatic manoeuvring but that it can even be the art of the impossible, namely, the art of improving the lives of all our people and of bringing happiness in their hearts. There is need for them to be aware that politics is an area of great important for promoting justice, peace, development and community among all.

If Rupiah does not listen to what his friends are saying and change his ways, he will face increasing opposition in the country. They have to immediately stop their methods of barbarism. If their methods are not of barbarism, what methods does barbarism employ?

These are the things we have been criticising, these are the things we have been opposing. And in doing so, we are not motivated by any malice or hatred against anyone. Of course, this has earned us a lot of hatred from Rupiah and his friends and today, as a result of this, they are trying to scandalise us in all sorts of ways, they are accusing us of being thieves who have stolen US$ 30 million, through Zambian Airways, from the Zambian people. Rupiah has vowed that we will pay the price for all the criticism, for all the exposes we have carried against him and his friends. He has threatened to close The Post and make our lives difficult.

Anyway, Rupiah should know that from July 26, 1991 when we launched this newspaper, we have never had an easy life. And difficulties, hatred, injustices against us have never stopped us from doing that which our job demands us to do. We are not so much bothered about a life of ease. We actually consider a life of ignoble ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after greater things, to be as little worth of a nation as of an individual. We do not admire people of timid peace. We admire the person who embodies victorious effort; the person who never wrongs his or her neighbour; who is prompt to help others; but who has those virile qualities necessary to win in the stern strife of actual life. It is hard to fail; but it is worth never to have tried to succeed. It is the duty of every one of us to struggle for the establishment of a more just, fair and humane society in our country. We say this because in this life we get nothing save by effort, by struggle. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even if checkered by failure than to take rank with those poor spirits who never enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. We have no respect for people who fear the strenuous life of struggling for a better nation, a better country, who fear the only national life which is really worth leading. We have no respect for those who believe in the cloistered life which saps the hardy virtues in a nation, as it saps them in the individual.

Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical and humane methods. Above all, let us not shrink from strife, moral or physical, provided we are certain that it is justified; for it is only through struggle that we will be able to establish a more just, fair and humane Zambia.

We therefore welcome and encourage all those who are speaking out and are trying in their own ways to make Rupiah realise that what he is doing is not right for our country and our people and must change his ways. Rupiah has to be made to yield to the demands of our people to administer the affairs of their country in a more honest, efficient, effective and orderly manner. His growing arrogance and lack of humility has to be cut to size.

Labels: ROGER CHONGWE, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 9:51 AM