UPND given 24-hours to retract GBM tribal remarks
….if they fail to do so, we will conclude they had a buy-in into his statement
GBM’s evil attempt to drive a wedge between the people of Luapula and Northern Province is a diabolical tribal ploy that has failed before.
It is meant to divide Bemba speaking people to give his party a chance in the hope that he will be vice president of the country, and perhaps even assume the presidency. And now the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) has been given a 24 – hour ultimatum to compel its vice president Geoffrey Mwamba to retract his tribal remarks aimed at ridiculing people from Eastern and Luapula provinces by calling them thieves. Zambia Republican Party (ZRP) president Wright Musoma, who made the ultimatum yesterday, said it was irresponsible, divisive, and a show of immaturity for Mr Mwamba to accuse some tribes as thieves of public resources. The remarks were prosecutable, he said. Mr Musoma said in an interview that it was shameful for Mr. Mwamba to go to the extent of insulting people from certain regions of the country with impunity and reckless disregard for repercussions of such careless statements to national integration, unity, and peace probably because they did not vote for his party. Mr Musoma was commenting on a newspaper report attributed to Mr Mwamba, commonly known as GBM, in which he made disparaging remarks claiming that most thieving civil servants and Government officials were from Eastern and Luapula provinces. He said Mr. Mwamba’s statement resonated well with the refusal by the UPND to take part in the national dialogue and reconciliation process because the opposition party believed in creating confusion with the hope of making the country ungovernable so that they could blame it on the ruling Patriotic Front (PF). “GBM is being irresponsible and careless in his statements about which provinces have thieving civil servants or leaders because this has the potential to bring discontentment among Zambians and with the already fragile political situation, this could be a source of anarchy and if that happens, he must be held responsible for it because he is very insensitive. “We demand that the UPND compels him to retract this careless statement, apologise to Zambians for trying to segregate against them based on tribe and region where they come from. If they fail to do so, we will then conclude that they had a buyin into this statement before it was issued because the party is a tribal clique that does not believe in national building but tribal politics,” Mr Musoma. He said those who were still harbouring tribal politics must never be allowed to rule this country as they may set it ablaze through their divisive tendencies because their propensity to introduce the “divide and rule” tactics to silence other tribal groupings were high. “We need national leaders and not those who are obsessed with tribalism and regionalism to rule this country. If Zambia will make a mistake of voting for such people into office, they will have themselves to blame”, Mr. Musoma said.