Maravi

M’membe responds to ‘president’ claims

M’membe responds to ‘president’ claims
By Speedwell Mupuchi
Sun 01 May 2011, 04:26 CAT

POST editor Fred M’membe says he doesn’t torment himself thinking about what positions he has to occupy in life.

Responding to claims carried in the state owned and government-controlled Zambia Daily Mail edition of yesterday that Patriotic Front president Michael Sata has promised to hand over power to him as president in 2016, M’membe said he was not in the media to become a politician and occupy political positions.

“I would rather aspire for an anonymous place in life… It’s not the first time that I am being accused of habouring hidden political ambitions. In early 2006, the late Mr Levy Mwanawasa claimed that I was going to be a presidential candidate in that year’s election.

“But during that election, Mr Michael Sata accused me of rigging the election in favour of Mr Mwanawasa because we reported that he had lost at a time when he thought he was headed for victory. I am therefore not surprised that Mr Rupiah Banda in his desperation to salvage his declining political fortunes is using the state-owned media to make all sorts of allegations against me. This will not change what I have stood for and what I stand for.”

M’membe said as a journalist, he had taken a keen interest in country’s affairs and endeavoured to make his contribution through his chosen profession for the last 20 years.

“If I had been interested in elective political office, I would have done it with much ease in 1990/91 when I was amongst those who pioneered the formation of MMD and sat on its interim executive committee. Out of choice, I did not do it then and I will not do it now,” he said.

“Mr Banda’s surrogates are speculating that I intend to be a presidential candidate in 2016. I will not be on any ballot paper. If the work that I am doing at The Post today will still be of value to my country and to my colleagues at The Post, I will still be here doing the same thing in 2016.

In a word, I will not be on any ballot paper for any position in 2016. And I have no agreement of any kind, political or otherwise, with Mr Sata. I have never been available for political office. And I will not be available to be Mr Sata’s vice-president and successor as president in 2016.”

M’membe advised President Banda and his followers to concentrate on understanding why they were becoming unpopular with the people and why Sata seemed to be gaining acceptance amongst Zambians.

He said the problems in the Western Province were not his creation.

“The unfortunate reaction of Mr Banda and his closest advisors on the crisis in Western Province was a product of their own vanity and lack of respect for the wishes, rights and lives of other citizens,” M’membe said.

“If Mr Banda and his friends respected Zambians in general and the people of Western Province in particular, they would have acted differently. If Mr Sata seems to be gaining some popularity in Western Province, Mr Banda should ask himself why and try to emulate instead of accusing me of all sorts of things, including being promised to be Mr Sata’s vice-president and successor as president in 2016.”

M’membe said if he was doing the work he does for personal aggrandizement and political popularity, he would have been frustrated a long time ago and left the noble profession of journalism.

He stated that being a president or vice-president was not enough incentive for the sacrifices that The Post required of those who worked for it.

M’membe said many workers at The Post were driven by the simple desire to see their country become a better place for all citizens, including President Banda.

“I think that we are defending certain principles that are of tremendous value at a time of confusion and opportunism in our country, a time when many politicians and other citizens are feathering their own nests at the expense of contributing to the common good,” M’membe said.

“Those accusing us of all sorts of things have no political ethics. If they had any ethics at all, they wouldn’t be saying the things they are saying; they wouldn’t be lying about other people and about us in the way they are doing.”

M’membe stated that journalists do best in a strong and decent community of people with principles and standards and common aims and values and in a society where those in political leadership had ethics and do not tell lies without paying a high political price for it.

“Those in political leadership cannot justifiably call us to virtues which they themselves do not make an effort to practice. I am not in the media to become a politician. I was in politics before I became a journalist. But of course not the type of politics where the only discernible aim of one is to occupy a certain political office,” M’membe said.

“I was in politics to campaign for the re-introduction of multiparty politics in our country and not to be anything in it. That is still my approach to politics and life in general.”

M’membe said that there were many things he participated in founding but was not anything in them.

“I am not obsessed with personal glory; I have not tormented myself thinking about what positions I have to occupy in life, in things. I would rather aspire for an anonymous place in life,” M’membe said.

“And I think that human beings should never draw away from the honest goal they seek and let themselves be influenced by positions, political or otherwise. If one had an opportunity to come in close contact with history and analyse these matters, one would realise that human beings tend to make a fool of themselves if they think too much about positions they should occupy in life, in politics, in things.

“I would say it would be wiser to aspire to a modest, simple, even anonymous place in life, because if you have a true measure of the power of people as individuals, you will know it’s so fragile and so much a small thing that it really does not make sense to magnify the role of any individual, no matter how intelligent, brilliant or able they may be.”

M’membe said he would leave the speculation of him seeking political positions to vain politicians and their minions.

“I enjoy what I am doing but still I don’t do it to fulfill a pleasure, an ambition. I do it as a matter of duty because I believe it is of value to my country,” M’membe said.

“But it is clear that I don’t need to do anything for these people to tell lies about me. Where there is nothing, they will invent something. How else can they survive without telling lies about us, without trying to discredit us for exposing their crimes, for opposing their misdeeds?” he wondered.

“I have every right to serve my country and my people in any way I deem fit. But political positions is not the way for me.”

Labels: FRED M'MEMBE, MICHAEL SATA, RUPIAH BANDA, THE POST

posted by MrK @ 12:35 AM