ABOUT UNREASONABLE EXPECTATIONS

IREALLY feel sorry for Zambians and their unreasonable expectations that their new President, Mr Hakainde Hichilema has what it takes to turnaround the Zambian economy and improve the living standards of the people.

The truth of the matter is that HH lacks what is needed to really convert the huge potential that Zambia has into actual wealth for the benefit of the people.

This is not something that l am saying for the first time, no. I’ve been saying this from as far back as 2014 before l joined active politics. l said this when HH was in opposition and l am repeating this now that he is President of Zambia.

Some people might call me a prophet of doom, but l see myself as more of a therapist. Someone who is helping you to adjust your expectations of what the “New Dawn” government will be capable of delivering so that when you finally see the disaster that will inevitably come, you will not be too heartbroken, because Sean Tembo would’ve warned you in advance.

Fellow countrymen and women, there is no question that this our country is endowed with huge economic potential in all sectors and sub-sectors of the economy.

Whether you talk about mining or agriculture or tourism or the visual arts, just name it, we have it all. The only reason why we have so much poverty in our country despite the huge economic potential that we possess, 56 years after independence, is because we have always lacked the necessary national leadership with the vision and fortitude needed to convert our economic potential into actual wealth for the benefit of our people.

I am fully aware that it is impossible to eliminate all of the problems of our citizens. That can only happen when we go to heaven. I am also fully aware that when you solve one problem, the solution often gives birth to another problem, albeit smaller usually.

That is why l have always advocated that as a nation, we need to sort out the basic problem of poverty. Poverty is simply a lack of basic necessities of food, shelter, clothing, access to health, education etcetera.

For a country that has huge economic potential and which has been independent for more than 56 years now, we are not supposed to be grappling with these types of basic problems at such a large scale.

But then, some people might ask to say why are you so confident that President Hichilema will not take us anywhere? Isn’t it too early to make such a conclusion?

Am l not supposed to be encouraging and supporting the President because when HH succeeds in his new job, Zambia and the Zambian people would’ve succeeded too? Well, that is very true.

But like l said at the beginning, my position that HH is incapable of achieving the economic transformation which Zambia desperately needs is actually long-held and emanates from as far back as 2014.

That was the time that l had resolved to join active politics and l was considering whether to join the then ruling PF party under Bashikulu Ba Sata or the then de facto main opposition UPND under the leadership of HH or just form a new party from scratch.

My conclusion then was that there was no difference between the PF and UPND. Even after the death of Bashikulu Ba Sata and the ascendancy of Mr Edgar Lungu, l still held the same view that there wasn’t any difference between the PF and UPND, nor between President Hichilema and President Lungu.

But someone might ask to say what exactly do l find wrong with our new President, Mr Hakainde Hichilema and why am l comparing him to former President Lungu so early? Well, the reason is simple.

President Hichilema has a self-defeatist mentality. He believes that Zambia cannot achieve an economic turnaround unless we are assisted to do so through the intervention of foreign countries and entities such as the IMF.

Instead of being inward looking, he is outward looking. And l can assure you my brothers and sisters that there is no outward looking leader that ever managed to make their nation prosperous in the history of mankind. Never. The reason is simple.

All foreign nations and entities look out for their own self-interests and it is naive for anyone, let alone a President of a country to think that another nation or foreign entity will look out for Zambia’s interests.

That is not to say we should not create alliances with foreign nations and entities, of course we should. I mean the world is now a single village so we cannot run away from cooperating with foreign countries and entities.

But we need to have our own home-based economic turnaround plan and foreign countries and entities should merely supplement it here and there whereby their betrayal would not be fatal to our national interests.

What l am trying to say here is that we cannot rely on the goodwill of foreign countries and entities for our prosperity. That is exactly what President Hichilema is doing by putting our country on an IMF programme and getting an IMF loan.

If l was elected President of Zambia on August 12, instead of going to the United States of America for my first foreign trip, I would’ve gone to DR Congo to discuss with my counterpart there how we can increase trade between our two countries by opening up more border crossings and reducing barriers to trade as well as how Zambia’s tech industry can leverage on DRC’s vast deposits of rare earth minerals.

From there l would’ve gone to spend a couple of days with my counterpart in Angola to discuss how Zambia can replace countries from continental America as a major supplier of agricultural produce to Angola.

These are the types of bilateral relations that matter to this country and not wasting time in New York with a begging bowl and posing for selfies in front of alleged American icons who were in fact slave traders during their time.

Indeed, the tragedy of President Hichilema is that he has an inferiority complex to all white people while at the same time having a superiority complex towards his fellow black people.

He thinks he is the most brilliant Zambian to have ever walked the face of our nation while at the same time, am sure that if he had a choice, he would rather have been born white. A President with such a conflicting mindset can never develop our country.

SEAN TEMBO, PeP President.