Maravi

God wants you to open your eyes, Sata tells Milanzi residents

God wants you to open your eyes, Sata tells Milanzi residents
By Chibaula Silwamba in Milanzi
Tue 27 Apr. 2010, 07:10 CAT

PATRIOTIC Front (PF) president Michael Sata has told Milanzi voters that God has spoken in miracles to them through three parliamentary elections within five years to change to PF-UPND Pact.

Addressing a campaign rally to drum up support for PF parliamentary candidate Albert Banda on Sunday at Mbinga Basic School ahead of this Thursday’s polls, Sata said: “God speaks through miracles. In 2006 you had elections in Milanzi, 2008 you had by-elections and this year you have by-elections. God wants to tell you something. Why Milanzi, within five years you have three elections? You must change. We have nothing against MMD.”

Sata further said: “It’s up to you people of Milanzi. On Thursday you know what to do. Luck does not come twice. God gave you UNIP’s Dr Chosani Njobvu, he died. God gave you Reuben Chisanga Banda, he died. God wants you to open your eyes.”

Sata told Milanzi constituents to desist from violence.

“I would like to say thank you to the people of Milanzi. Despite your difficulties, you have maintained your dignity,” Sata said. “Whether you are PF or MMD or UNIP, when you want to fight your brother; the blood you are going to spill belongs to a Zambians.

When you injure your friend, whether he is UNIP, MMD or PF, they will go to a clinic where there is no medicine, no nurses or doctors and clinical officers. So please maintain that peace. Nsenga people sung me a song: ‘fight using words only, not using stones’. What we are fighting for is liberation of everybody.”
Sata said physical fighting did not help people in anyway.

“Tell anybody who has energy and power to fight to come and clean our roads because our roads are very bad, our schools are very bad, so bring them to come and repair our roads, our schools instead of wasting their energy on their fellow Chewa people,” Sata said.

“On Thursday, don’t cry for me, cry for yourselves and your children when putting a vote on Albert Banda. Even you Banda, when elected you must change. Chewa gave birth to you and brought you up, even you must leave Milanzi better than you found it. You must add something to Milanzi than what your parents did so that all these people can remember you that there was Albert Banda.”

Sata dismissed President Banda’s announcement that the Food Reserve Agency would start the purchase of maize next month.

“Rupiah came here saying in May, next week, they are starting to buy maize. Because he is just flying over you, he doesn’t see the maize fields. Surely, the maize in the field can you sell it? It still has high 28 per cent moisture content.

The four days I have been here I have travelled and saw that maize is still green,” Sata said. “Mr Albert Banda, you have seen these people, it’s not their wish to be looking miserable. It’s because of us leaders especially you from the Eastern Province.”

Sata condemned President Banda’s handling of agriculture and the welfare of rural people. He bemoaned the bad state of the Katete-Chadiza road.

“Unemployment is a very big thing. A very big UNIP man left UNIP in the night and joined MMD, now you are calling him our President. Rupiah Banda was big UNIP. When Rupiah Banda was elected he did not come here to Katete to say, ‘Thank you’. He went to Gwanda in Zimbabwe. When he came back from Gwanda, he knew there was starvation here in Katete but he didn’t bring maize here in Katete, instead he sent 9,000 tonnes of maize to Gwanda. Open your eyes,” Sata said.

“Some people were telling you that don’t vote for Sata’s party of the boat because there is no water here. Then they changed that if you elect Sata, he will throw all elderly people in water. There is no water where a boat can sail, now how can I throw elders in the water that is not there?”

Sata, on Saturday, toured Kafumbwe clinic where he found torn linen in the wards and broken sinks and later visited chief Mbang’ombe home to pay his respects to the chief’s late son, 38-year-old Edward Phiri.

Dole ward independent councillor, Japhet Phiri, urged voters to vote for Albert Banda.
“PF-UPND Pact will win next year’s elections. In short, I am asking you to vote for Albert Banda in this by-election on Thursday.”

And PF-UPND Pact campaign manager for Milanzi constituency Charles Banda accused the MMD of having fired live firearms on Sunday/Monday night to portray an impression that the PF was the one doing that.

“I urge the police to step up investigations and bring this case to a logical conclusion. Let MMD keep those firearms away. It was a very unfortunate incident and it should not be repeated,” Banda said. “If they are going to use fire we will also set up fire and there will be chaos. If anything, we are going to meet them with equal force.”

Banda said MMD members had bought catapults indicating that they were preparing for violence.

“We have proof that they bought those catapults and we know the person who bought them and where they were bought from,” Banda said. “We want to find the reasons why MMD bought catapults.”
He said elections must be peaceful and every political party must be free to campaign and explain their manifestos to all voters.

But MMD Eastern Province chairperson Kennedy Zulu said every man in the village had catapults.
“Do you have to buy a villager a catapult? No, everyone has a catapult,” he said.
Zulu claimed that the PF were the ones who fired the shot and the police were investigating the matter.

Labels: BY-ELECTIONS, PF-UPND, SATA

posted by MrK @ 3:07 PM