Rupiah is losing it in W/Province

Rupiah is losing it in W/Province
Written by Mwala Kalaluka
Sunday, October 11, 2009 4:07:04 AM

CHAIRMAN for the dissolved Western Province MMD executive committee Simasiku Namakando yesterday said President Rupiah Banda has failed to manage the party and is fast becoming unpopular.

Reacting to the decision by MMD secretariat to appoint an interim provincial executive committee in place of the dissolved one, Namakando said President Banda was becoming unpopular because of the decisions that he was allowing MMD national secretary Katele Kalumba and his friends to make.

“Because President Banda was UNIP he must know that in the MMD we follow the constitution. We do not follow shortcuts,” Namakando said. “President Banda is an acting president of the MMD; please put this in capital letters. He is not yet endorsed. When you act you can either make it or fail.”

Namakando said from the way President Banda was running the MMD, it was clear that he was failing to manage the party. He accused the MMD national leadership of trying to create anarchy in the country owing to their undemocratic attitudes.

Namakando said only four MMD provincial leaders had been ‘reshuffled’ from the dissolved executive committee. He said there was no way that an executive committee, which was elected by a provincial conference, could be reshuffled. Namakando maintained that he was still the provincial MMD chairman.

“I was elected as provincial chairman for the Western Province by the provincial conference. The only people who can reshuffle us is when we have a provincial conference,” he said. “These people are in disarray. Dr Katele Kalumba and his friends are in disarray. The MMD secretariat is totally disorganised…That is why we are saying we want to go to the convention to elect credible leaders.”

And Namakando accused President Banda of being ungrateful to the people of Western Province who voted for him in the 2008 election.

“I liken President Banda to an Indian emperor Shahjahan…who when his wife, Mumtaz, died after the birth of his 14th child became sick and died, emperor Shahjahan called the most experienced architectures to build what is now known in India as the Taj Mahal; one of the Seven Wonders of the World,” Namakando said, adding that after the builders completed the Taj Mahal, the emperor decided to cut-off their hands so that they could never build such a structure anywhere again.

“This is what President Banda is doing. I made him win as provincial chairman for the MMD in Western Province,” Namakando said. “Mr. Banda is now in State House and after winning his reaction was that, ‘I did not solicit for the vote of the people of Western Province’. He wrote a letter to me, who campaigned for him. I was the campaign manager for Western Province. I do not know whether Mr. Banda is being ungrateful to the people of Western Province or not.”

Namakando further compared President Banda to one of two men that went to the bush in search of honey and when they found it, one man climbed the tree and started eating the honey alone, saying where he came from they did not eat honey while looking down.



Namakando said it was not until the man on the ground set the tree on fire that his friend atop the tree started crying for help.

“This is what is happening. They are enjoying. If they are forgetting Western Province, we will say thank you and we will put a lot of heat and fire to the tree,” Namakando said. “If we are not going to the convention, we will not agree…Western Province is intact and the people are with me. They are very disappointed that this is what they have done to me. Remember, I am a politician and I will appeal to the people of Western Province to come to my rescue.”

Namakando said the people of Western Province assured him when he featured on a phone-in programme on a local radio station in Mongu, that they would not abandon him.