Maravi

Rupiah threatens opposition leaders ‘insulting’ him

Rupiah threatens opposition leaders ‘insulting’ him
By Chibaula Silwamba
Thu 21 Oct. 2010, 04:30 CAT

PRESIDENT Rupiah Banda yesterday warned that he has powers to arrest opposition leaders that ‘insult’ him but will not do that because he does not want to split the country. And President Banda said his government was working on measures to reduce mealie-meal prices following a bumper harvest of maize estimated at 2.8 million metric tonnes.

Addressing a campaign rally to drum up support for Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) candidate Keith Mukata at Mount Makulu Basic School in Chilanga ahead of Monday’s by-election, President Banda said he was a subject of insults every day.

“My name is always put into ridicule but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have the power. Of course I have the power, I can arrest those people; I can do all kinds of things to them but I don’t want to do that,” President Banda said.

“I promised the Zambian people when I was asking you to elect me during the elections after we lost our dear brother the late president Mr Mwanawasa, I promised that I will be a President of peace and I promised that I will not be the one to split our people.”

He said he had promised Zambians that he would do everything in his powers to unite Zambians and he was currently fulfilling those promises.

“I also know how to insult. I know the words of nshamba insults, I can say the kind of things that my colleagues in the opposition say but I think it is undignified for a President to stoop so low and start using abusing words from his mouth,” President Banda said.

“Every day they insult, not only me, they insult you too. We must as a nation, especially that everything that we say is heard by our children, we must be an example of good leadership and parenthood.

We cannot be the ones to take lead in teaching our children insults.”
President Banda said MMD’s former Chilanga partliamentarian Ng’andu Magande was expelled because he became difficult for the party.

“Although he was claiming that he was MMD, he was also very busy criticising the MMD and any organisation has got the right to sort out this kind of problems and this has resulted in this by-election today,” President Banda said.

He said Mukata was the most suitable candidate to become Chilanga parliamentarian unlike UPND candidate Captain Cosmos Moono, whom he claimed had failed to serve Chilanga residents during his five-year tenure as parliamentarian there between 2001 and 2006.

“Keith already has all my telephone numbers; my cell phone, my office number, he knows how to get hold of me,” President Banda said. “I don’t know if Mr Moono would know what to do with your problems.”

And reacting to MMD members that informed him that they would fight back the opposition members for “provoking” them, President Banda told the cadres not to hit back.

He said Zambians want to live in peace, hence the MMD should concentrate on convincing the voters on why they should vote for Mukata and not fighting.
President Banda urged opposition leaders to denounce violence.

“We don’t want elections to be associated with violence,” he said.
President Banda said his government’s good policies in agriculture led to the production of 2.8 million metric tonnes of maize.

“We are not satisfied, the price of mealie-meal is low enough; we are going to put measures in place to even reduce it further. But the fact is our mealie-meal is a little bit cheaper than before,” said President Banda.

Mukata said Moono had done nothing for Chilanga and there was no need for people to re-elect him.

Labels: MAIZE, MEALIE-MEAL, RUPIAH BANDA

posted by MrK @ 3:51 PM