Tribal Senior Chief Mukuni demeaning
Senior Chief Mukuni must tone down because it is demeaning for a traditional leader to act as if he is an opposition leader and trying to divide the country, Chief Luchembe of Mpika has said.
Chief Luchembe said in an interview yesterday it was clear that Chief Mukuni wanted to divide the country, adding that it was shameful for a traditional leader who was supposed to be a unifier to act like an opposition leader.
The chief was reacting to tribal sentiments by senior Chief Mukuni who claimed that President Edgar Lungu vowed to arrest Ministers from Luapula province to allegedly hinder them from taking over from him. Chief Luchembe said it was disheartening for a traditional leader to promote tribalism thereby divide the country instead of preaching unity.
“It’s not good to give unsubstantiated allegations against the Head of State. Senior Chief Mukuni is trying to divide the country because of his utterances, he has been on record of being a divider which is very unfortunate.
It’s unfortunate to come out in such a way instead of being an adviser especially to politicians. And the only challenge is that he is always against President Lungu,” Chief Luchembe said.
The traditional leader reminded Senior Chief Mukuni that if he was aggrieved, he must engage the President, stating that the Head of State had an open door policy and traditional leaders were free to see him on certain issues.
“As traditional leaders we have a privilege to meet President Lungu and engage him on certain issues. Why Senior Chief Mukuni should be going to the press and start attacking the Head of State especially when he does not even have facts about what his talking about,” he said.
He also said that traditional leaders must never complain if people attacked Chief Mukuni over his utterances because he was losing direction as a traditional leader. The traditional leader said it was unfortunates that Chief Mukuni who was supposed to be the father of the nation was in the fore-front to divide the citizenry.