Of late, there is a lot of chatter going on about how this UPND government must stop blaming the PF of all the economic malaise they brought about in our midst and just move on.
I find it amusing and to say the least, utterly insulting for anyone to suggest that we must call an amnesty and forget all the economic sabotage, maladministration and grand corruption the nation endured, kiss and hug, and live happily ever after?
Well, with such an approach to governance, we may all just as well, pack our bags and forget about our Zambian nationhood, seek asylum in some God forsaken bitterly cold and grim European country and seek refugee status.
In short, it is not just possible.
Not even the most ardent critic of the UPND Alliance government and its leader President Hakainde Hichilema have by now the slightest doubt that a New Dawn is upon us.
It has been 19 months since that epic August 12th general election which saw the PF resoundingly ousted from power with a record shattering 1 million votes. A wake up call, for all the naysayers that things will never be the same again.
For those who ever had a shadow of doubt; the die is cast, and the time of reckoning is nigh
A special day that stamped a new beginning for the over 18 million citizens of the nation as they recast their vision for the Zambia they wanted.
It was the most harrowing seven years of the most atrocious leadership that this people has ever experienced. A period when most of the gains of yesteryear where reversed or completely erased.
How else then, could the people of Zambia find relief from the brutal realities of their experiences if not by changing guard?
The children gnashed their teeth from the pangs of hunger, as their fathers scavenged and sometimes perished in pursuit of just a morsel of food to bring back to their families in the ramshackle they called home, to share, just to stay alive.
The women wailed for their dead as they beat their breasts in agony. This, but only a snippet of what Zambians had endured.
And in the full glare of all who cared to see, maladministration, grand corruption and misappropriation of funds, was the order of the day.
With impunity and arrogance to public display, some shamelessly lived their lives amassing ridiculously huge mounds of ill-gotten wealth. This as they teased the ordinary Zambians to live within their means; and now as the infamous, quote goes.
They mockingly prodded us to eat Kandolo (sweet potatoes) if a loaf of bread was too dear for us to afford.
Never must we ever forget that, from the highest office of the land, we were publicly advised that “ubomba mwibala, alila mwibala”, literally translated in the English language that “ Those that labour in a corn field, can steal from the same field to stay alive”
As a rider to the counsel, we were cautioned however, not to steal even the seed from the field because there would be nowhere to return, to continue with the plunder.
Zambians were made to endure mysterious fires which engulfed most of our public markets where ordinary traders scrapped a living and lost their life savings with no compensation at all.
The government of the day, at the time (PF) promised to investigate; it has been years.
Again, Zambians were made to endure a several weeks long wave of mysterious gas poisoning countrywide, which led to the deaths of many citizens, Civil upheaval threatened public peace as brother rose against brother through instant justice death mobs, The PF administration remained mute.
As the true impact of the horrors of the past seven years of the PF misrule continues to excruciatingly unfold, the little that has been laid bare to public scrutiny, already bared the hallmark of a typical failed government, with its attendant human rights abuses.
Justice needs to prevail and someone has to pay the price for that which unfairly and wrongly plagued our society. The time to account for all that was done in the name of the people of Zambia is now.
Today, the law makers have been on a hard road to duty as for the past over one and a half years have been trying to bring sanity to the mess that was left.
The few honourable men and women who have been charged with the trust and noble cause to legislate on behalf of the people of Zambia must live to the high moral and civil ground bestowed on them as they, and President Hakainde Hichilema bring sanity to the nation.
The President has made it clear time and again, that those that serve in government do so on the basis of servitude and allegiance to the Zambian people.
It is therefore worrisome, to see that, those who were in the forefront in the callous rape of the nation, are the loudest to cry wolf, when the long arm of the law visits them.
They, as in the proverbial wolves in sheeps clothing, want to portray themselves as innocent from the carnage that they perpetuated in their seven years of plunder.
Today, they are prodding the government to stop pursuing the injustices they committed and mockingly telling the leadership to move on, and forget about past crimes true or perceived, which were committed.
They want to force amnesties on themselves and go scot-free devoid of the sin that hangs over their heads.
It would indeed be fool-hardy, for this New Dawn Administration to bury its head in the sand, and pretend that, all that the wrongs and effects of the wrongs on today’s economic standings will merely vanish.
They are the first to cry out loud about how the prices of commodities are higher than they should ideally be, they cry the loudest about high mealie-meal prices, they moan the most about fuel prices, they cry foul about the rate of the kwacha against other world convertible currencies, and yet, on closer scrutiny, you find that their footprint is imbedded in all the challenges being faced today.
This type of chicanery is one that all forward looking Zambians must be weary about because, the PF especially must not be the ones to stand on a high moral pedestal and begin to preach how or how not to run a government with an economy which is inflicted by a malady which was inflicted courtesy of maladministration and corruption by the PF
What Zambians must know and understand is that, the extent of the damage to the economy was real and it had to take a man with the anger of a raging bull Buffalo, and its flock to take the bull by its horns to bring sanity to the nation- And in this case President Hichilema with his Cabinet.
It is a pipe dream for those who engaged in corruption, to think that any of them would be left scot-free after they committed crime.
To keep quiet or to move on as others are suggesting is a crime in itself.
Lest we forget, the effects of crimes perpetuated against the people of Zambia still reverberate, they are with us, they haunt us, and so, we need to cleanse the spirit of shame, crime and lawlessness and begin on a new slate.
But we can never forget