Rupiah is driving Zambia to the brink of civil war – Nawakwi

Rupiah is driving Zambia to the brink of civil war – Nawakwi
By Patson Chilemba
Mon 03 May 2010, 04:00 CAT

FDD president Edith Nawakwi has observed that President Rupiah Banda is driving the country to the brink of civil war because he has allowed a “useless policeman” to abuse his office.

Commenting on the violence that characterised the campaigns in the Mufumbwe parliamentary by-election, Nawakwi said President Banda was squarely to blame for the violence.

“Now we are reaching a level where truly if the President does not take action not only against the perpetrator in the police service, one Inspector General of Police Francis Kabonde who is clearly a perpetrator of violence and not only Kabonde but his party cadres, Chris Chalwe, if he does not take action, he is driving this country to a brink of civil war,” Nawakwi said.

“Only President Rupiah Banda will be answerable to the people of Zambia and God for this blood that is starting to drip. It does not take an outsider, it shouldn’t take the international community to come to Zambia and tell us that peace and tranquility is as valuable as air.”

Nawakwi said Kabonde was the last person any reasonable leader would want to have by their side. She said Kabonde’s main agenda was economic survival and he was in office only to serve his master’s wish.

However, Nawakwi said the Zambian taxpayers who were responsible for paying Kabonde’s salary did not deserve “this incompetence.”

“Mr President Rupiah, you and I are citizens of this country…you and I have children who are under the age of 10. Any blood is entirely on his feet because he has allowed a cop to misbehave, to abuse his office. When we had serious cops, do you think you could behave like that?” Nawakwi asked.

“If Kabonde knew that his competence will earn him a booting, why dismiss the army commanders and everybody and leave this useless policeman? If he had dismissed Kabonde and left the army commander, no one was complaining about the commander. But people have cried so much and for so long to get Kabonde retired or redeployed. Can we deploy him for special services at State House if he is such a beautiful cop?”

Nawakwi said the violence had not started overnight because President Banda had it coming.

She said the violence had been verbal, consistent and the President just watched it.

“We could not have reached to this level if as head of state when the cadres were threatening to assault me he had taken decisive action.

The President cannot be surprised that this violence is taking root when he goes to the archives of political biography and pulls out the likes of MMD Lusaka Province chairperson William Banda,” Nawakwi said. “William Banda was governor of Lusaka. He was transferred to Lundazi by the former president Kenneth Kaunda because of violence.

And even in Lundazi, I recall that he almost got us murdered. It had to take late General Christon Tembo to walk over to William Banda’s office and literally manhandle him in his office for him to sober up in 1991. So he should not be surprised that there is this violence because the only reason William Banda is back to the fore is because the head of state thinks the politics of William Banda is what will make him thrive.”

Nawakwi said William Banda was by nature a violent person.

“Go even to the graveyard, and try to find one person in the graveyard who will say anything positive about William Banda other than violence, and these are the people who are close to the head of state who is responsible for peace and tranquility in the Great Lakes Region,” Nawakwi said.

“I watched his President Banda’s speech when he said ‘I don’t want violence’, he is not telling the policeman to arrest the culprit. He is not saying to his members ‘if you are violent, I don’t want you near me’. He is not saying that. In the back of his office room, he is probably saying ‘well done’.”

Prior to Thursday’s by-election in Mufumbwe, there were continuous attacks among political party cadres and opposition party supporters, both from police and MMD cadres, a situation that left several people injured.

And Nawakwi charged that Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Chalwe Mchenga and President Banda were sitting on her fiat.

Nawakwi disclosed that recently Mchenga recalled the file he had sent to central police directing them to prosecute MMD Lusaka Province youth chairperson Chris Chalwe who threatened to gang-rape her.

“They have sat on the case…what message is the President sending to his party cadres? He is saying ‘you can go ahead, I will protect you’,” said Nawakwi.

MMD cadres threatened to gang rape Nawakwi following her criticism of President Banda’s governance style.