POLICE LOSING PUBLIC TRUST

THE new dawn administration under the United Party for National Development (UPND) says it does not condone violent conduct from any quarter and police must therefore bring the culprits to book.

Inspector General of Police Lemmy Kajoba must therefore explain to the nation why the men and women in uniform are failing to curtail the violent conduct of UPND cadres.

This is because the government has given them leeway, or assured them that it won’t interfere in their operations particularly in relation to political violence.

But by now, it is clear that police inertia is an institutional cancer that won’t just disappear overnight.

This perhaps explains why the same complaints keep on appearing in relation to police operations.

Of particular interest is the latest incident involving violence and lawlessness attributed to cadres from the UPND and police operations.

This is in relation to the uncalled for attacks by UPND cadres on senior Patriotic Front officials at the Chelstone Police Station in Lusaka last week.

The PF leaders were at the police station to give solidarity to one of their officials, Mr Raphael Nakacinda who was in police custody for allegedly defaming the President.

The cadres did not drop at the police station by air but were driven there. They did not only attack the PF officials but attacked police officers as well.

We would have expected the police to have traced the owners of the vehicles used to drive the cadres to the police station, and from there establish who had hired them.

The cadres who were involved in the attack, from the videos seen on social media have no capacity on their own to have known what was happening at the police station, or the means to hire vehicles.

Someone issued instructions as to what they were to do and any professional police service would have traced the vehicles by now.

But it appears the police want to shield the perpetrators of violence which is not being fair to the UPND government.

We concur with UPND spokesperson Cornelius Mweetwa who yesterday said as a party in government, they needed to be open by not shielding anyone regardless of political affiliation.

He said that if the violence was shielded in the party it can spill out and grow into full-fledged violence.

This is the more reason why the public is concerned over the police inertia to act decisively against those breaking the law with impunity when there is political will to deal with the nuisance.

As Mr Mweetwa noted, the UPND would not shield anyone because everyone was equal before the law and those that commit crimes against the law should not expect political protection.

The fear from the public is that if police allow political cadres to get away with criminal activities, the nation will degenerate into a state of lawlessness.

And yet, this was one of the negative issues that the UPND campaigned against during the August 12 tripartite elections which brought them into government.

The Police Service must not be seen to be turning their back on violence being committed by UPND cadres lest they will be regarded as being an extension of the party’s security militia.

The onus is on them to win back public confidence. They can only do this by being politically neutral in this multi-party dispensation.