By Staff Reporter
Edith Nawakwi says she warned Hakainde Hichilema and ‘his criminal” elements that the Pheluna issue was going to be a festering boil in their faces.
UPND members Rachel Chileshe said she was aware of the plot involving President Hakainde Hichilema working with Ackson Sejani, Southern Province minister Cornelius Mweetwa, Solicitor General Marshal Muchende and the wife to chief Mukuni in the abduction of the Hatembo’s as they feared disclosure of how the then opposition leader acquired some properties, which Nawakwi was investigating.
Chileshe said she and her husband and a journalist actually travelled to Macha after the whole scheme had been hatched and managed to parade the Hatembos before the cameras, but wondered why the matter was being blamed on Nawakwi, charging that a man who wears jackets as a Church elder should not be peddling such deceit and behaving in such manner.
Commenting on Chileshe’s assertions, Nawakwi demanded that police had the option of immediately taking the matter to court so that she can quickly expose Hichilema or drop the charges against her and pursue the real “criminals” who have been awarded hefty compensations when they were the ones behind the criminal act of abduction.
“I did warn Hakainde and his criminal elements in UPND that the story of Pheruna is something that was a festering boil in their face. I always told them that you don’t want to know what your bosses know,” Nawakwi said. “They kept Pheluna and Hatembo when her child Nasilele was dying for political expedience. I was the only one available to look after Nasilele … Hakainde knew he was keeping Pheluna.”
Nawakwi said while Pheluna went back to nothing after the abduction, everybody else that was involved in the whole scheme got compensated.
“That’s how callous Hakainde is. These are people whose properties he annexed. He has annexed thousands of hectares meaning that people there are peri-urban squators so that our man can be seen as rich. His propensity to accumulate these hectares shows extreme greed and you just need to look at the case of the Pheluna,” Nawakwi said. “Whose telephone did Pheluna use to telephone other people? Is it not Mrs Mukuni’s number? If I had abducted her, why did she use Mrs Mukuni’s number?”
Nawakwi demanded that police must remove the term abduction from the charges against her as that made it seem like she was a terrorist who would be prohibited from travelling to other countries.
She charged that the involvement of Muchende in the matter explained why Hichilema was now swallowing his own words when he claimed that he would not allow public officials who were being investigated to remain in office, following the investigations against the Solicitor General on allegations that he received US$500,000 from a former named liquidator.
“Mr Muchende is a long standing real estate partner with Hakainde and he’s been his lawyer. Even in the Pheluna case he was the one defending Hakainde and trying to humiliate Hambwalula. It doesn’t matter how much Zambians scream about Muchende. Him and Hakainde is like phone and sim card,” Nawakwi said, adding that President Hichilema is someone she must be going to for clemency as head of state, but he was now in the forefront of scheming against her. “This man can’t defend the constitution. I have been abused since I fell ill.”
She charged that Zambia “has been besieged by an evil spirit.”
“When God sees that things are beginning to go wrong, he moves in,” said Nawakwi. “What happened to King Saul in the Bible? He removed him. Hakainde is our Saul in this nation. Let the police expedite the case by going to court or drop the case and go after the looters.”
