Political thuggery must be stopped
WITHIN the space of a month, the officers from the Department of National Registration, Passport and Citizenship were victims of UPND thugs in Muchinga Province.
We then heard of the PF office in Lusaka’s Munali constituency vandaliSed on a Sunday after UPND cadres stage-managed damage to their ward office within the constituency.
Later we saw the UPND torching their office in Nakonde and then last week two police officers being abducted among other terrible events.
These series of events cannot be said to be random ones, they might be expertly designed and executed by an organised group of people wishing to achieve a particular cause.
The UPND has for some time agitated for reprisals and it should be of concern when the pockets of disorderly conduct are recorded in other parts of the country.
These could be the preliminary tests aimed at setting the stage for mass rebellion ahead of the politically charged year and preventive efforts must be put in place.
The UPND are testing the depth of the ocean in preparation for 2021.
On the other hand, the statement by the UPND foul mouthed leader Gilbert Liswaniso that they would mobilsze at least a convoy of 1, 000 vehicles to escort the UPND president Hakainde Hichilema to Mpika is an admission of our previous claims that the opposition party is not popular in the northern circuit but banks on the goodwill of the artificial and mobile crowd.
It clearly exposes their disrespect against the directive by authorities for political parties not to ferry cadres.
With all fairness, the police must be allowed to function independently without the harassment from the artificial crowd.
Like any other citizen, HH is not above the law and if there is a reasonable cause to believe that he may be of help to any ongoing investigations, the police must feel free to summon him.
The announcement by Mr Liswaniso clearly shows that the UPND have exempted their leader from accountability. The Minister of Home Affairs, Mr Stephen Kampyongo disclosed that Sesheke MP Romeo Kang'ombe was implicated as being in a vehicle that the abducted police officers were disarmed from and consequently bundled to unknown destination like common criminals.
We see no reason why Mr Kang'ombe or HH cannot be summoned to state their side regarding the events in question.
We are also anxiously and intently wondering why UPND takes pride to invest their resources in activities that are meant to benefit HH as opposed to UPND cadres.
From the remarks attributed to Mr Liswaniso, it is clear UPND is likely to set aside colossal sums of money to mobilise the vehicles that will ferry mostly jobless UPND youths to Mpika.
This casts doubts on whether the UPND has capacity to prudently utilise national resources. If we can ask; what is priority to UPND between empowering their "apparent jobless youths" or delving into HH's personal battles with law enforcement agencies? Will it be wrong to suggest that a UPND in Government will focus on using national resources to fight personal battles at the expense of the nation?
If they cannot exemplary utilise their resources to empower their youth, it will be miraculous to see them channelling expenditure to national developmental projects.
We therefore implore law enforcement agencies to take measures and see to it that only whose whose presence is necessary must be in Mpika. Anyone who will attempt to hijack the programme must have themselves to blame.