Lungu record unmatched, says opposition leader

THERE is no president who has recorded a number of successes and remained so humble compared to President Edgar Lungu and his Government, says Zambia Republican Party president Wright Musoma. Mr Musoma said it was very wrong for anybody to propagate lies against President Lungu to gain public sympathy because Zambians knew what was happening. He said Zambians knew who their President was and what the current Government had done for them as compared with others before him. “The only thing that Zambians can complain about President Lungu is his failure to root out the cartel and also to approach those tarnishing the image of the country abroad. “It is not right for National Restoration (NAREP) party president Elias Chipimo to lying to excite people when there were a lot of examples to show for itself,” he said. Musoma said it was only in Zambia were politicians wake up and go to bed insulting the regime with impunity without reproach, adding that Mr Lungu’s government was the most tolerant compared to those of his predecessors. He explained that as a matter of fact, President Lungu was setting a wrong precedent for those bent on undermining his authority and have gone on a field day going round alarming the nation and yet he turns a blind-eye. “If somebody commits a crime 20 times, he should be arrested and charged 20 times and made to face the law. “But President Lungu keeps entertaining people like Saviour Chishimba and Chishimba Kambwili; those are the failures that you can attribute to President Lungu, not development,” he said. Musoma said nobody could beat President Lungu on the levels of development and humility, saying this was a truth nobody could take away from the Head of State. He accused Mr Chipimo of cheap politics which he claimed had destroyed the NAREP leader. The NAREP leader, he added, had sunk so low as to begin taking advice from cheap people who he was supposed to be giving advice with his education background and experience in politics. Mr Musoma said the NAREP president was better placed in terms of education standards that he should not be linked in any way to nonentities in politics. He said ordinarily, Mr Chipimo could not be compared to People’s Party (PP) president Mike Mulongoti or Economic Empowerment Party’s Chilufya Tayali, as the Zambian people expected a lot from the youthful leader. “This is a reason why Chipimo is even losing people at a supersonic speed because he is not being objective. This is not the Chipimo we knew. “And now NAREP is a shell. He is just alone. And he can’t realise that just that cheap behaviour of his party is making him lose membership because who would want to associate himself with cheap? No one,” he said. He said Mr Chipimo should not turn to lies to excite public sympathy and support for his dying party. He said it was not the first time Mr Chipimo was turning to lies about the processes and systems of governance in Zambia.