Staff Reporter
PF presidential aspirant Chishimba Kambwili has challenged President Hakainde Hichilema to write to Zambians explaining to them what Olusegun Obasanjo, Sirleaf Johnson and Ernest Koroma have done for Zambia to deserve being awarded with the Order of the Eagle of Zambia 1st Division.
“The only thing I can ask, what have they done for Zambia? That’s the only question I can ask. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the President conferring those status to people, but first he must explain to the country what they have achieved. That’s all I can ask, let him explain to us what they have achieved,” Kambwili said to Daily Revelation. “People must not be honoured for what they have done for an individual. They must be honoured for what they have achieved for the country. If people are being awarded those grand commander shani shani for what is done for an individual, that is abuse of the system.”
Kambwili said he would support the Presidents actions whole-heartedly if he explained to Zambians what former presidents for Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Obasanjo, Johnson and Koroma respectively, have done for the country, saying he is expecting a write up from the President explaining his decision.
“So before I am told that and analysed I would not call it being a puppet. I would not call it that he is being what. But to just be told that we are conferring these people with this without explaining to us what they have done for Zambia is abuse,” Kambwili said. “You don’t climb a tree from the leaves. You may be condemning something when those people have done something that we don’t know. So let us go step by step. I want the President and the UPND government to explain to us what those three people the President is conferring those awards on, what they have done for Zambia.”
Kambwili said people know that those people are friends of the President having had associations through the Brenthurst Foundation, but that that should not be the basis for conferring presidential highest orders on them.
“Because if there are people helping me politically and then when I become president I confer them then we are abusing those conferments of the highest order,” Kambwili said. “Because we saw them at the inauguration. We have seen from the grapevine that they have been meeting the President. There are allegations that they have been meeting and they are also participating in advising what Zambia should do.”
He argued that people who have offered distinguished service to this country have never been conferred in such manner, wondering the rush to do so with the outsiders.
Kambwili said President Hichilema must stop abusing the authority given to him by starting to award friends with national honours.
Asked on former president Edgar Lungu’s statement that he was not done with politics, as someone who is seeking the PF presidency himself, Kambwili said that was Lungu’s opinion and would respect it.
“You cannot advise somebody on how he feels personally and I don’t know from what angle he spoke. I would say that he was expressing his opinion and I will respect his opinion,” said Kambwili.
