File: Lungu with Nevers
MMD President Dr. Nevers Mumba has warned President Edgar Lungu to stop abusing and mocking the name of God by hoodwinking Zambians to fast and pray against political violence when he is the chief culprit in fueling the vice and had recently publicly announced that he had summoned senior police officers to State House and to ordered them to ‘sort out’ the opposition.
A few days after that a UPND rally in Chawama was cancelled at short notice and the crowd dispersed using live bullets resulting in the death of a female UPND cadre.
“He is instigating and fanning violence at night by using the police to harrass the opposition and in the morning wears a desceptive humble face to ask the country to fast and pray. God cannot be mocked and does not initiate violence but President Lungu does. It is not for God to stop violence, but Lungu,” warned Dr. Mumba.
He said as Commander in Chief with all security wings under his jurisdiction, President Lungu was abusing this authority with impunity to frustrate opposition campaign programmes including abrupt cancellation of opposition party rallies, provocative and senseless police and ZAF actions deliberately aimed at disadvantaging the opposition while giving unfair political advantage and free course to the PF to freely conduct their campaigns.
He was speaking at a huge mammoth rally in Luangwa township in Kitwe, part of the ‘whirlwind’ Copperbelt campaign tour being undertaken with alliance partner UPND Vice-President Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba in which they addressed several huge rallies in Twapia in Ndola, Mpongwe, Kasumbalesa, Kantanshi, Chingola, Kafulafuta, all in just two days focused on comprehensively ‘combing’ the entire Copperbelt in preparation for the August election.
Dr. Mumba said wherever the team went in Northern and Luapula provinces during the previous week, they met heavy police resistance and harrassment exemplified by the surrounding of Mano Radio station by armed police, threats of grounding their chopper, cancelling of landing and flying permits and short-notice expulsion orders to leave the provinces by the Police command and Zambia Air Force Commander all under the guise of President Lungu’s anticipated visits to the areas.
This harrassment included the latest attack on UPND Vice-President’s private residence and harrassment of his wife and family in Kasama where the police raided and ransacked the place resulting in the disappearance of K345,000. 00 cash which had been in the house.
These incidents resulted in delays in their Luapula and Northern province campaign programmes which in most cases had to be cancelled or drastically shortened before the final leg of the tour to the Copperbelt.
The key message to the Copperbelt electorate was that in 2011, the PF came to ‘steal, kill and destroy’ their jobs and dreams as they had failed to bring new mining investors to the sector all due to President Lungu’s self-confessed lack of vision in managing the affairs of the country and caused the collapse of the economy due to the unstable, unpredictable and confused economic policy regime of the Patriotic Front which led to loss of investor confidence and the resultant job losses and escalation of the cost of living.
They urged them to join the rest of the country in removing the PF Government and rally behind the candidature of Hakainde Hichilema’s premium and focused leadership to save the country from total collapse.