By Staff Reporter
A USA-based man who claims to be Defence permanent secretary Norman Chipakupaku’s son, has pleaded with Republican President Hakainde Hichilema to intervene and help him reconnect with his purported father, saying if he had a way of connecting with the President he would actually travel to Zambia just “to reconnect with my dad.”
And Jason Makhela who bears a striking resemblance to Chipakupaku said it is rude and selfish for his “father” to have dismissed the question about him when he said he thought the journalist would ask him about what the government was doing to evacuate Zambian nationals from Ukraine, instead of asking him about “strange things.”
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Jason pleaded with President Hichilema to intervene by talking to “my dad to reach out to me.”
He said it was just that he did not have any means of getting in touch with the President, but if he ever had he would love to connect with the head of state even if it meant traveling all the way to Zambia just in the hopes of reconnecting with “my dad.”
“I would be willing to do that or if he (Chipakupaku) is willing to come here,” Jason said.
He claimed he felt low emotionally when he heard his father respond to the question on whether he knew about him, by telling the journalist that he thought he was going to ask him about what the government was doing to evacuate nationals from Ukraine instead of asking about “strange things.”
“Talking about Ukraine instead of talking about rebuilding our relationship I think it’s rude, I think it’s selfish,” Jason said, saying he thought Chipakupaku was in denial as “I’m still his son and haven’t done anything wrong to him.”
Jason, now 26, said he was very young the last time he claimed to have seen Chipakupaku, around 5 years of age, saying all he wanted was to have the chance to reconnect with his purported father. He said he could have probably understoodif he were an adult and was being “rejected” for being insolent, but that was not the case.
But asked if he felt he was being unfair to Chipakupaku for claiming to be his son, and then it turned out he wasn’t, Jason maintained that he was Chipakupaku’s son and that all his relations, particularly those in South Africa knew about him.
He said he was not trying to seek any favors nor extort Chipakupaku and was not even homeless as he had a home in the United States with family there, saying everyone deserved a chance to be with their father “even if he’s not there, but just to connect.”
He said he had already lost his mum and was simply trying to connect with the other parent, and that Chipakupaku could not claim to be helping people get out of Ukraine and going out to help people with his public service, while letting “family issues go unresolved.”
Jason said he was not trying to ruin Chipakupaku’s career nor bad mouth him, in the knowledge that he has worked hard to reach where he had reached.
He narrated that he was now living in the United States, having left South Africa in 2008 when his mother died. He said by that time, Chipakupaku had allegedly eft them seven years earlier in 2001.
“I contacted him when my mum passed…I tried to let him know. He didn’t seem to care about anything. I tried to reach out to his son David in the UK, he doesn’t really say much about my dad. He just doesn’t want to talk about him. I tried to reach out out to the rest of his kids they don’t say anything, they don’t reply,” Jason said.
About his alleged father’s relationship with the mother, Jason said: “I don’t know how long they stayed together. I know they weren’t married that’s why I don’t have his last name. As far as I know I am told that is my dad and looks don’t lie, you can see that that’s my dad. If a DNA test is to be requested if we want to correspond we can prove that that’s my dad.”
He said the one time he managed to get in touch with Chipakupaku was through a Skype call when the Defence permanent secretary addressed him as ‘son how are you doing?’
Jason says he now lives in the state of Tennessee in the US, and that he remembers staying with the person he says is his father together with their mum, but does not remember how long that was, because he was young at the time, and that the mother insisted to him over the years that Chipakupaku was his father but that he left them.
