Maravi

Defending Chiluba’s corruption

Defending Chiluba’s corruption
By The Post Editor
Thu 22 Apr. 2010, 04:00 CAT

It is said that, “A skilled craftsman is admired for the things he makes, and a leader’s wisdom is proved by his words. Someone who speaks rashly and recklessly is feared and hated by everyone in town.” Sirach 9 : 17-18.

It is also said that, “When evil men are in power crime increases but the righteous will live to see the downfall of such men.” Proverbs 29 : 16.

There are lot of lessons we need to learn about leadership from what the book of Sirach and the book of Proverbs teach us. Like a good craftsman who is admired for his products, a good leader should be admired for his wisdom.

A leader who lacks wisdom, lacks judgement. And a leader who lacks judgement is a danger to the people that he leads.

But if lacking in judgment is also combined with a love for what is wrong and a protection of wrongdoing then the situation for the country is even more dire. As Proverbs tells us when evil men reign, crime increases.

Rupiah Banda’s behaviour during the press conference that he gave on Tuesday on the Copperbelt was an exercise in self-condemnation. In his mind, Rupiah thought he was doing damage to his political enemies but to the contrary, he did more damage to himself than he did to anybody else.

It is clear that Rupiah either has no political advisors at all or is incapable of taking any advice. It seems Rupiah is so determined to retain power at any cost that even common sense is eluding him. It is said that, “If you get more stubborn every time you are corrected, one day you will be crushed never to recover”. Proverbs 29 : 1.

This is what is happening to Rupiah Banda. Every time he is advised, he is becoming more stubborn and charting his own direction however nonsensical it might be. \

We say this because Rupiah seems to believe that his political fortunes are dependant on Frederick Chiluba’s support. Chiluba, the self-styled master dribbler, has convinced Rupiah that he is capable of delivering political victory to him. Rupiah for his part has decided to take over Emmanuel Mwamba’s job and become Chiluba’s spokesperson and defender.

What is interesting is the fact that Rupiah thinks that he can launder Chiluba and use Chiluba to gain political mileage in the areas where he is weak. Rupiah believes that the Zambian people have forgotten Chiluba’s thefts and corruption and will therefore rally to Rupiah’s side on account of his friendship with Chiluba.

Rupiah’s conduct also proved that Chiluba has become something of a political mentor to him. The question that remains to be answered is in what kind of political practice is Chiluba mentoring Rupiah in? What is clear is that Chiluba cannot mentor anyone and usher them into the school of honest politics, selfless public service and respect for public resources.

This is so because Chiluba in his tenure did not respect public resources, he did not practice selfless politics or indeed practice honest politics. Chiluba’s type of politics is the kind where the ends justify the means. Everything goes.

It is said that if you show me a man’s friend I will tell you his character. Rupiah told us that Chiluba is his friend and showed us that he will go out of his way to defend him and follow his example. We have always said, and will always maintain that Chiluba is a thief, a lazo as the people in Kasama called him.

And this is what Rupiah has vowed to protect and defend. Why would a person who swore to uphold the Constitution of Zambia be so determined to defend wrong and wrongdoers? What is motivating Rupiah in his relentless and determined defence of Chiluba?

In his carelessness and rashness, Rupiah told the nation one of the things that are driving his determined defence of Chiluba. He said that he is defending Chiluba because he is also going to become former president and he wants to be respected when he becomes former president.

This is Rupiah’s logic. To him, defending Chiluba’s wrongdoing and giving in to impunity will earn him respect when he retires. What did he really mean? Is he telling us that our people should respect him for protecting plunderers and allowing them to get away with what they have stolen from our people? How does he expect this to earn him respect? Anyway, this is the way Rupiah thinks.

With this kind of confused logic, he also expects our people to like him and vote for him because he is protecting Chiluba from prosecution. This is the level of confusion to which Rupiah has been reduced.

To him, right has become wrong and wrong has become right. What the people hate, he thinks they like; what they like, he thinks they hate. We say this because how does anyone expect our people to applaud theft, corruption and crime in general?

Rupiah has been telling our people that his government is serious about fighting corruption. They have been bragging about having introduced a new anti-corruption policy that is supposed to take the fight against corruption to a higher level.

When we tell them that their contradictions make nonsense of all their pronouncements, they accuse us of insulting them. But the truth is that their position on corruption and abuse of public resources clearly demonstrates that they are not about fighting crime and corruption in particular. If anything, their whole conduct is that of people who defend and protect the corrupt and corruption.

Rupiah wants the nation to believe that he is fighting corruption when he is busy defending Chiluba and what he stands for. Rupiah’s government is supposed to be registering the London High Court judgment which found Chiluba guilty of defrauding the Zambian people out of several millions of US dollars.

This matter is still in our courts. Can Rupiah tell anyone that he is serious about enforcing that judgment and recovering some of the loot that Chiluba took from our people?

We also wonder why Rupiah thinks the defence of Chiluba’s corruption is going to earn him respect. What is he worried about? There is only one way of ensuring that Rupiah is respected when he leaves; it is by ensuring that he stops the corruption that is currently rampant in his government.

He needs to run a clean government and in that way no one will have any reason to arrest him. Rupiah should know that our culture does not accord respect to thieves and other social misfits who abuse their positions in our society.

The way Rupiah is behaving suggests that either he has done some wrong things or he is about to do some wrong things so that he would like to be protected the same way he is protecting Chiluba. This is a very shallow way of thinking.

No one can protect Rupiah from prosecution when he leaves power except himself by not doing things that he knows to be wrong. He needs to respect public property and take seriously the fact that the position that he occupies does not entitle him to treat public business as if it was a private family affair.

Government procurement and other contracts should not be a business for Rupiah and sons. If Rupiah wants to be respected and left to rest in peace when he is no longer President, he should realise that when he became President he gave up the right to do business with government.

He is now our employee and if he goes against that legal position, no amount of protecting Chiluba or defending him will protect Rupiah. His friendship with Chiluba will not save him.

It does not make sense to protect a thief and thereby hope to earn the sympathy of honest people. Anyway, one thing is clear; by protecting Chiluba, Rupiah will gain the sympathy and respect of thieves and others who condone theft but not ordinary Zambians who are looking for what is in the best interest of our country.

Rupiah should understand why we do not keep quiet about his wrongdoing. No amount of insults and ridicule from him or any of his minions will stop us from doing what we do. This is the way that we have chosen to help our people. We will speak for the many who cannot speak for themselves.

We have been called quacks and now we are being elevated to devils. But this is okay. If calling Chiluba a thief makes us devils, so be it. If denouncing Rupiah’s corrupt tendencies makes devils, so be it. We would rather be called devils than be serenaded by thieves and their protectors.

Lies and half-truths have never been the best building materials for anything that lasts. But this is what Rupiah went to peddle about us and other people on the Copperbelt.

Dishonest people do not realise that their lies can turn against them and come to haunt them. It was interesting to see that apart from defending Chiluba’s crimes, Rupiah also took the time to accuse the Patriotic Front of stealing and paying themselves instead of spending on development.

Something came out of Rupiah’s desperation to paint his opponents black. We say this because Rupiah gave percentages of how much was being spent on emoluments as opposed to infrastructure expenditure. This is a typical case of trying to remove a speck in your friend’s eye whilst leaving the log in yours.

Since Rupiah has become the Central statistician, can he tell the nation what percentage of the taxes we pay go to paying emoluments in our country and how much is spent on infrastructure? And whilst he is still at it, can Rupiah also tell us how much he spends on his bloated establishment of Cabinet and other ministers? From what we know, the picture is not different from what he is accusing the opposition.

He has forgotten that he went to the Copperbelt to tell the people there that there is only one government, his. Anyway, his Copperbelt agenda was started by his political mentor Chiluba who went to attend funerals in all the Copperbelt towns not too long ago. The same people that Rupiah was meeting are the people that Chiluba went to meet.

Even the language that Rupiah used was the same language that Chiluba used. It seems Rupiah carefully read Chiluba’s report, which he compiled whilst attending numerous funerals on the Copperbelt and decided to follow everything Chiluba wanted.

It seems Rupiah is defending Chiluba because he has something to fear. Honesty and integrity is the only insurance that can protect Rupiah and not Chiluba.

Labels: CHILUBA, CORRUPTION, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 3:20 AM