Mumba advises Lungu over jokes
By Staff Reporter
President Edgar Lungu should avoid sharing jokes with the people as they are overly angry over their suffering, Dr Nevers Mumba has advised.
Commenting on the president’s recent ‘insulting and demeaning’ statement against his traditional cousins – the Bembas, Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) faction president Mumba says people are not in the mood to share or entertain any Jokes from the head of state because they are facing alot of economic hardships.
Mumba who is a Bemba speaking himself, said this during a radio programme titled ‘Frank on Hot” yesterday.
“I think the president has to come out and explain this to the nation. He needs to explain the context he made the statement to say ‘out of 10 Bembas, 6 are thieves’. He needs to set the record straight if this was a light moment or not because the issue is too big and sensitive for Amos (presidential spokesperson) to explain alone,” he said.
Mumba went on to explain that he had a similar experience when he served as vice president under former president Levy Mwanawasa.
“Even Mwanawasa had a joke gone bad when he said ‘Bembas are thieves and they smell’. The bembas were very annoyed with him especially that they thought he was persecuting former president Chiluba (whom they regarded as one of them)”.
Mumba said President Mwanawasa did not give the task of ‘damage control’ to junior officers but assigned him as vice president to visit chiefs and apologise for the statement that could have been taken out of context.
“I spent three months moving from chief to chief in Northern province trying to convince them that if the president thought that Bembas were ‘smelling thieves’ he wasn’t going to appoint me as his vice president. So the idea of going quiet does not go well with issues of governance. He has to come out in the open and apologise,” Mumba advised.
He said the Patriotic Front lacked communication channels or strategy that was responsive to the expectations of the people.
“When you hear the presidential spokesperson Amos Chanda speaking, what you hear is some kind of arrogance. This is unfortunate especially that generally Zambians don’t like arrogance because of what they are going through. How do you even explain Kampyongo’s (Home Affairs Minister) statement about deporting investors? Is that government official position,” he asked.
Mumba said he once advised late president Mwanawasa to engage the public more often by holding monthly briefings but the president advised that he should take up the assignments as vice president.
“He advised that I should take up the updates because he feared that he had a short temper and would answer the journalists inappropriately once he was ‘hit’ by sensitive questions because he had a short temper. So I took up the assignment to hold monthly ministerial briefings. I think president Kaunda should also be commended because he used to hold a lot of press briefings at State House,” he said.
Mumba expressed disgust that the political system was ‘rotten’ citing corruption which had been institutionalized and embedded in the country’s society.
And commenting on the Con-Court’s ruling of President Lungu’s eligibility to stand as PF presidential candidate for the 2021 election, Mumba said this issue should be dealt with from a wider perspective.
“If we have problems with the Con-Court then let’s stop taking cases to the respective court. That’s how to deal with the bigger picture. The moment you begin to doubt the courts then anarchy creeps in. Why should we take cases to the Con-Court and be happy when we win and yet we want to complain when we have lost,” he said.
