MY POLITICAL JOURNEY
I AM encouraged to write this due to the fact that majority of my followers and sympathisers do not know much about what transpired for me to leave UPND and join PF.
Firstly, I would like to thank the UPND leadership for giving me a platform to serve the people in different capacities as a young person under its umbrella. I hold no bad feelings with the leadership but as the saying goes, experience is the best teacher.
I first joined politics in 2003 barely a few years after PF was formed and became an ardent PF youth under Chawama Constituency. In 2006 I was among the vibrant young people that mobilised, campaigned and protected the votes of our candidates and delivered first PF victories in Lusaka, for the late Chawama MP Reverend Violet Sampa Bredt and Captain Mulenga now Northern Province Permanent Secretary who won as ward 1 Councillor and he is also former Lusaka District Commissioner.
This is the period, I learnt a lot of things in politics and knew strategies to winning formulas especially in opposition.
In 2008 I got a job at Zambian Breweries Plc, this is where
I met my brother comrade Liswaniso Gilbert who was vocal in speaking for all casual workers at the company (he had not yet joined UPND too).
After leaving ZB in 2012, I immediately rejoined politics, I was attracted by the UPND manifesto and policies on education, youth empowerment and agriculture. So I started following all the activities and later joined a branch in Kamwala trading area as my small business was there. In Kamwala we formed strong allies with the likes of Martin Musukuma and others.
I climbed the leadership ladder from the branch to the district level where I was a committee member and later appointed as Lusaka District Youth Treasurer. It was during this period that I experienced a lot of things, good and bad. Some of the good things included me being given opportunities to represent the party as a youth leader on many foras and activities that added to me having a wide scope of experience in politics.
The biggest challenge I faced was the issue of segregation and tribal alignments. Colleagues in UPND don’t want to see certain tribes to be close to each other, I was labelled and put on the pending chopping queue by the district main body chairman for simply associating with a fellow tribesman who was a threat to his position.
There was a time the district committee unanimously recommended me for a position of Lusaka District Youth vice chairman after we went through interviews and the Chairman came out very strong that the position could not be given to me because I was a Bemba and associated with his rival and he put his fellow tribesman.
During this same selection period, I was in the car with one of my fellow youth leaders who received a call from a National Youth Leader (a secretary) unfortunately to him and fortunately to me, the phone was so loud as if on loud speaker.
This gentleman categorically stated that don’t put Sampa on that position, some of these positions of influence consider names, my colleague just cut the call in disappointment and felt empathy for me.
Having evidence to this, I appealed this decision to the province and followed the party constitution, copied the SG and Election Chairman. Was I attended to? not even one person moved an inch to ask about it until it died a natural death. Was I shaken Yes, did I give up No, actually I worked even more.
One day, we went to the president’s house and this same guy that was given the position was there, we saw Madam Mutinta at the entrance of the house and we all started approaching to greet her. This
guy turned to me and said “ba Sampa, remain here, imwe nama zina yanu kufika kuja?”
I was pissed off and broken. Did I give up, No! There was a bit of tension and divisions within the district youth leadership following the unfair treatment I was shown by the district main body and I had quite a good number of
support from within the wing’s executive.
The youth media team in Mandevu reported weekly activities that we were undertaking and referred to me as aspiring MP. This became a hot issue in the Party such that these young media personnel were directed not to refer to me as an Aspiring Candidate or MP.
The Party National Media
team even instituted a workshop in Mandevu to train all IPS’s on how to report Party activities and I was reliably informed that the issue of Aspiring Candidate was on the table.
I was invited to South Africa for a party activity and during this activity, one of the senior NMC members and vice chairlady for Lusaka
Province furiously with hatred in the presence of other party members looked at me and told me I was too young to aspire for Mandevu.
She told me it was in her powers to choose who stands in Mandevu and I should stop wasting my time, she said other things I couldn’t remember.
When the issue of the then Vice President Dr. Geoffrey
Bwalya Mwamba arose, I was very innocent and at some point towards his departure I became close to him because he was the Vice President. Not knowing something was brewing between him and the party president.
Those senior youth leaders who knew about the frictions between the two most powerful
people in the party saw this as a final blow towards me. They listed me as an Anti-HH youth leader, wrote articles that even the branches I was forming in Mandevu I was being sponsored by GBM so that we do damage to the UPND upon leaving (innuendos).
I just laughed off these allegations because I knew my heart. Allegation after allegation came my way, I was made to answer for even being added innocently to whatsap groups that were deemed anti-HH.
I was first officially summoned by the District Youth Chairman and some executive Members to verbally exculpate myself to which I did and the meeting was held within the UPND National Secretariat premises.
They lied to the people that I was organising parallel structures for Bembas to rebel against the leadership, and people who trusted me began to see me differently in the party hierarchy.
After the District Youth I was summoned by the province and national youth leaders, this meeting was held inside the UPND National Secretariat chaired by two national vice youth chairmen in Mr Munji Habeenzu and comrade Liswaniso Gilbert.
Other notable attendees included Samuel Ngwira, Anderson Banda, Mwanakayaya, Morice Miyoba, Muzinga, Zaire, Chikota who was the secretary and many others, the number was more than 20.
I was questioned and accused of a lot of issues that I had nothing to do with. A few days later I received a letter of my position being revoked for refusing to attend a meeting which I don’t know up to now and reduced to be an ordinary member of the party, I immediately called Lusaka Province Chairman Hon.
Mwaliteta to tell him about the injustice that was happening to me, he only sympathised with me Was I shaken Yes, did I give up No.
The day that GBM was rejoining the Patriotic Front Party, I was at my small office working and was putting on my company embroidered shirt. I was following GBM’s presser live on Facebook and saw my comrade Chikwanda (though he later rescinded his decision), it was at this point that I received a call, it was Godfrey Chitanga the UPND Lusaka Province coordinator who said ba Leader, ba boss want to talk to you, I said ok, then the voice came and the boss was Mr. William Banda who said to me, Sampa we are at the Secretariat right now and the youths here are saying you have gone with GBM, I said no boss am actually working now, he said come so that we can prove that. My Sikolokolo didn’t disappoint me that day, I reached the Secretariat within 15 mins from the call.
When I reached the Secretariat, I didn’t know I was taking myself mukanwa kankalamo, I was lynched by the youth, Chitanga and Chazanga whisked me into the SG’s office were I found Liswaniso, Ngwira, Charmaine Pule and Suko, they seemed to know the mess I was in and was all my fault. I went back to my business broken, some of the youths who were turned against me I used to help them a lot, the Party that I had sacrificed for so much, made me look like an alien or foreigner. I gathered my strength and told myself not to give up. Was I shaken Yes, did I give up No.
Interactions with my fellow youth leaders had diminished at this point, I was evicted from all UPND whatsap foras. I told myself to continue fighting this battle, as I tried hard to prove a point especially by continuing my mobilisation programmes in Mandevu, I started seeing signs of resistance from party officials. Not everyone can hate you, some confided in me and told me they were being instructed by some senior leaders not to tolerate or allow me do any activity in the branches, wards and constituency. With my experience in UPND once you’re blacklisted there’s nothing for you especially if you’re coming from the other category which is not 100 percent trusted.
Then I reached out to team GBM who was very glad to re-incorporate me back as a PF Member or sympathiser. In my thoughts as I was making considerations, I recalled how President Edgar Lungu interfered in one case involving a then mere PF youth member Jay Jay Banda and now Eastern Province Youth Chairman and put an end to that conflict, it gave me hope I was going into the hands of parent who hears the cry of every child regardless. I consulted my family and relatives, they gave me their blessings and that’s how I left UPND to rejoin PF.