By Patson Chilemba
Hakainde Hichilema and the UPND are not to blame for the problems in the PF, but those who went to shed crocodile tears at the memorial of late president Michael Sata, says former Defence minister Davies Chama.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Chama, who was Edgar Lungu’s Defence minister, said the problems in PF were self-created because of the “I, I, I” in Lungu, who he said even claims to have the power to fix the party when he literally can’t do anything about the problems.
He said he was saddened that the pretense will never stop, where “they even pretend in Church” and they are given the pulpit and “lie through their teeth” and then they even claim to love the people.
He said he warned about the trajectory those who were in Lungu’s camp of suspending people were on, for merely speaking for the convention and advocating for Lungu to forgo the presidency.
“There are no wolves, and you can’t blame anyone but ourselves. This thing of trying to find a scapegoat is not right. The decision to go for the conference was our initiative. No one imposed this on us,” Chama said. “That’s what we basically don’t support and I am upset with that behavior of blaming others. If he (Lungu) had intervened earlier, this thing couldn’t have happened.”
He questioned the wisdom by Lungu of saying that he had come back to fix things.
“What is he going to do about the current events because now he is part of the problem? I don’t know what he is going to correct,” Chama said.
He said the chaos in PF came with the added risk of strengthening other opposition parties, stressing that the PF was not short of leaders even among the nine who filed nominations to replace Lungu.
“So you can’t say you are the only one who can change things as if you are God. You are not God,” Chama said, mockingly adding: “I heard the declaration at the memorial. So the fixer has arrived so he’s going to fix things. He said I! ‘I can’t allow this.’ So the I has arrived, so he will make sure all things are fixed.”
Asked on which party faction he will work with, Chama insisted that he will only work with the PF, the same one which Michael Sata formed.
Asked on what strategy they have to unite the party or if he has heard any from the Lungu camp, Chama said the strategy should have been announced “when someone says I am coming back.”
“But the strategy is ‘I have come to fix things,’” he said, saying uniting under one common theme should have been done a long time ago if only people showed concern by including all the people that matter, including former first lady Dr Christine Kaseba. “You want to bring her when there is this mess created.”
He said the matters were now in court and warned that this may be a protracted process before a resolution is found.
Dr Kaseba recently said that she appreciated that people turned up for the memorial of her late husband president Sata, which was mainly attended by the Lungu faction, but wondered what use that was if people could not honour the legacy of the person they were remembering.
She also disclosed that Sata warned central committee members before he died that the party was going to be broken if leaders did not look after the party carefully.
Chama said he totally agreed with the former first lady, something he described as a total betrayal of the former president, saying but they were even “shedding crocodile tears to launder themselves to the former president for their own good.”
“If you are not truthful about what you do, God will expose you. I agree with what ba mayo said, people have not been sincere,” said Chama, saying what had happened in PF was not a proper way of dealing with fellow adults. “It’s very sad to see anybody who says he loves this party do this to it.”
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