Sean Tembo says UPND operating like a rebel group

PATRIOTS for Economic Empowerment (PeP) president Sean Tembo has challenged UPND president Hakainde Hichilema to tell the nation if his party has converted to a rebel group.

Mr Tembo said Mr Hichilema should act like a re-sponsible citizen aspiring to rule the country by ensuring that those that kidnapped police officers are brought to book.

He challenged Mr Hichilema to come out in the open and tell Zambians if UPND had converted into an armed rebel group that was no longer sub-ject to the laws of the land.

“That is because our belief is that any citizen, any political party and indeed any aspiring presidential candidate is subject to the laws of this land, re-gardless of the amount of political support that they enjoy,” he said.

Mr Tembo said Mr Hichilema’s callous behaviour was regrettable and designed to bring conflict to the country.

He said the UPND leader’s strategy was to sow seeds of discord among the people.

Mr Tembo said the “scorched earth” approach to politics being practised by the UPND was not beneficial to the citizens and the country.

“We wish to put it on record that several individu-als have previously attempted to ascend to the highest position of President in the past. Some made it, others didn’t. Most of the previous presi-dential aspirants invested huge sums of money in-to their quest.

“But when they failed to make it, they did not adopt a scorched earth approach and try to burn Zambia to the ground, in the manner and fashion that the UPND president, Mr Hakainde Hichilema is attempting to do,” Mr Tembo said.

He said the abduction of a police officer was a se-rious offence and that perpetrators must be brought to book.

“We therefore find it regrettable that Mr Hichilema decided to refer to the Police IG as ‘stupid’ merely for requesting that he avails himself for police in-terviews,” Mr Tembo said.