By Daily Revelation Correspondent
Brian Mundubile, Makebi Zulu and the other ‘political prisoners’ are in high spirits and confident that they shall be released from police custody and be able to join the struggle for ‘independence’, says veteran politician Akashambatwa Mbikusita Lewanika.
And Prince Lewanika said what Jonas Shakafuswa’s regional remarks against the people of the northern region showed the failure by President Hakainde Hichilema’s administration to reset the country over the “evils of group domination and unequal power sharing.”
In an interview over the weekend, Lewanika said he visited opposition leaders, Mundubile, Zulu, Bishop Trevor Mwamba and the others, and from talking to them and observing them, he could see that they were in high spirits that they would be released and be able to join the struggle for ‘independence’ as soon as possible.
He said he would also redouble his efforts towards his contributions to the struggle with more confidence than ever before.
Asked how their physical condition was, Lewanika said torturers were experts at ensuring that they tortured people by leaving minimum bodily evidence on the people they tortured.
“So the fact that you don’t see any bodily evidence is not proof that people have not been tortured. Indeed being in prison in itself is torture,” Lewanika said.
He said the culture of continuing with political prisoners which has been going on before and after independence was shameful.
“But I think the first observation is how high spirited they were, and I think that spirit in itself has made their bodies more resilient health wise,” Lewanika said.
He said he went there after receiving reports that some of them were having health challenges, including Bishop Mwamba who was said to have been denied wearing his medical eye glasses when he was at Matero police. However, Lewanika said after visiting Mwamba in Mukobeko he was wearing the glasses, and that the right for him to take some drugs had been restored to him.
He said businessman Valden Findlay also assured him that he was much better now despite still needing medical attention.
Lewanika said the general view he got from Mundubile, Zulu and the others was that they were withstanding well, despite not being in ideal circumstances.
“We have been fooling ourselves all along that we were independent in October 1964. We were not. We are still not independent. Independence from what? We are not independent from imperialists political control. We are not independent from imperialists economic control. We are not independent from sub lifestyles compared to other people,” Lewanika said. “But in this particular case there is even the idea that Brian Mundubile, when I saw him in jail I recall that his own father was jailed by colonialists, and very mistreated by colonialists. That more than 60 years on, and 62 years after independence, his son, born after independence should be a political prisoner like his father was, is a shame. It’s a great great shame. If there is need for a testament that we are not independent is that fact. Just like father, like son, just like father in the colonial days, is like son 62 years after independence.”
Lewanika said that was the more reason why the country needed to struggle for independence, saying those who were currently suffering had the spirit to continue with the struggle.
He said those like him who were outside the jails must utilise their freedom to top capacity to ensure that all the political prisoners were freed, beyond the ones at Mukobeko.
He said he was back in Barotseland now and there were still political prisoners arising from the chaos in Western Province during the campaign period when police fired teargas canisters and ended up arresting many political activists.
He said he was actually the one who was on stage speaking when police started firing teargass.
Lewanika said there were Barotse people who were also being tortured for many years of having to be regularly harrased for their political viewpoints.
He said the 84 Barotse nationalists who were jailed and taken through the court system in 2013 were only released on a nolle, which was still hanging over there heads.
He said nolles placed perpertual stress on people that anytime the state would take them through the torture they had already been in.
On the recent statement by ex-Finance deputy minister Jonas Shakafuswa thag the most aggrieved people from the outcome of the 2026 general elections were those from the northern region as they saw the election as an opportunity to get back power into their hands, Lewanika said when he looked at the totality of the matter since independence, each administration had been discriminatory to some group.
He said President Hichilema’s administration had an opportunity in 2021 to reset the country where at the end of their term, what Shakafuswa had said should have been sayable.
Lewanika said the country should have been governed in such a manner that there would be no section that would would be ‘crying.’
“In fact what Shakafuswa has said is actually the condemnation of the end result of five years of HH’s governance,” Lewanika said.
He said he had hoped against hope that with the election of President Hakainde Hichilema to office, the country had a relatively younger person who was not there in the struggle against independence, nor anywhere to be seen in the struggle to return Zambia to multiparty democracy, and that he would be able to give the country a fresh start and reset Zambia.
He said the country’s constitutional platform should have should be a win-win situation as opposed to ‘wina azalila.’
“What this young man has said about a certain section of the country is actually testifying the failure of the last government. I can only say that it’s not the first government to fail us in this way,” Lewanika said. “But no doubt he is testifying that it has failed.”
Lewanika said he had hoped that what was said by Chishimba Kambwili and Shakafuswa would become unnecessary to say after five years of an administration which understood very well “the evil of group domination and unequal power sharing.”
He said people had been jailed for all sorts of reasons without changing the system.
Lewanika said what was needed was to change the constitution from personalised leadership so that the country could not repeat what had happened in the past.
He said jailing people for what they said was jailing them for a political offence.
