CORNER-MEN OUT OF THE RING
Kambwili versus Lusambo box now-Round One
This is a 12 round title bout for Zambian heavyweight boxing show – down a bout of truculent combatants
BESIDES ournalism, I am e -amateur and proessional bo ing administrator. Additionally, I carry a ull-bag o Zambian political history. My possession of this combined know-how, in boxing and Zambian politics, compels me to make a brief come back in boxing promotion. The starving boxing public, indeed, eagerly desires to have an extra ordinary boxing tourney staged. Here, I am, well-poised to welcome belligerent politicians in the ring, where they fit far better than mouthing eloquence in parliament as supposed. The current batch of Zambian politicians needs this reminding: they can’t be allowed to enjoy the best of both worlds at the same time boxing and politics. The belligerence between Chishimba Kambwili (former information Minister) and Bowman Lusambo (Copperbelt Minister) is a citable typical case. Mandevu Member of Parliament –cum-lands Minister, Jean Kapata, is another fistic combatant. To satisfy the blood-thirsty mind-set of this political trio, hence, Kambwili and Lusambo particularly should be pitted against each other in a fistic combat to settle their intolerant stance. On my part, as a mellowed boxing promoter-match-maker, I am more than resolved to stage a 12-round heavyweight show-down at Musa Kasonka Stadium, Ndola. A thriller in the making. The staging of this contest is, as inevitable as it has been prompted, by the shuddering precursor: the fistic combat rather than exchanging political wits that took place outside Parliament featuring the MP trio: Kambwili, Lusambo and Kapata.
Yet in the game of politics, in the refinement of democratic values and, above all, in Parliamentary debating, politicians apply one and the only lethal weapon: spoken power. Nothing else!
Parliamentary building, let alone, the surrounding, serves as the seat for Zambian political mandarins, the sages of our Zambian society.
Functionally, it is treated as the arbiter and refinery of collective and cumulative sense of reasoning.
Harry Truman, the third US President truly asserted: "As politicians, we have to battle for the rights of people we don't agree with; and who we may not like. These people test the strength of the freedoms which protect all of us. If we don't defend their rights, we endanger our won .
Politics, in any case, is like a horse race. A good jockey must know how to fall with the least damage to suffer. Today s politics provides hardly room for politicians to behave like street gangsters.
The Presidency Edgar Lungu holds transcends above all political parties willy —oily. Though there is no seat reserved for him in Parliament, all MPs discharge their duties, irrespective of political parties, under the umbrella of the Presidency.
The constitution, however, provides momentous occasions when the President addresses the Assembly House. Parliament, in short, is the most supreme institution in the land.
Let Zambian MPs and cabinet ministers take a flawless leaf from the likes of the Vice President, Inonge Wina; Foreign Affairs Minister, Harry Kalaba; Justice Minister, Given Lubinda; Finance Minister, Felix. Mutati; Minister in the Vice —President's office, Sylvia Chalikosa.
United Party for National Development has had a number of MPs with impeccable political disposition, men and women, radiating no iota of political intolerance such as Charles Kakoma, Villie Lombanya as shining set. By coincidence, they are professionally journalists.
To write laconically, he serves his political party best who serves the country best.
As a direct consequence, the degree of political intolerance has become endemic far beyond rectification.
It is, thus politically remindful that power exercised with violence has very short duration while power exercised with moderation gains permanence.
Collectively, charismatic late President, Michael Sata twice endured physical brutalization- unleashed by late Willie Nsanda and Dawson Lupunga for the purpose of shattering his Presidential ambition- but ultimately Sata triumphed.
And when he formed the Patriotic Front Government, the unthinkable political expectation happened: President Sata later appointed Nsanda, who had been his brute, Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Transport.
William Banda, currently the political advisor to UPND President, Hakainde Hichilema, was once a political brute unforgettably. Induced by political groveling in support of UNIP, he with cahoots brutalized the late Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe at Kamwala Market, Lusaka, in 1972 leaving him in comatose condition.
That was a nation- shaking act of primitivity. Banda, where are you today? What self-satisfaction did you derive from that barbarous, or put in a different word, barbarian type of political mind- set.
Who in Zambian political arena, not so knotty, is unaware that those who kill by sword will die by sword?
Or, do you earn political leadership through slaying your political rival? The ideal political greatness is earned through, no other way- but majority votes gained in legally held election.