By KENNEDY LIMWANYA*
YOU may fault George Mpombo for his daily bulletin of bitter outbursts at President Rupiah Banda who preferred eminent lawyer George Kunda to him for the lofty position of republican vice-president in 2008.
By the way, it is just a question of being overly ambitious for Mpombo to even have thought he was worthy being considered for such a position that demands extreme self-discipline which the former Defence minister so astonishingly lacks.
Mpombo was not even among the names Zambian people were speculating for the vice-presidency before President Banda appointed his first Cabinet following the October 30, 2008 presidential election victory.
There were such names as Kabinga Pande, Inonge Mbikusita-Lewanika, Bwalya Chiti and a few others that were making rounds as possible candidates for the vice-presidency.
Vice President George Kunda
The calibre and intellect of these people is far higher than that of Mpombo who has of late been publicly advertising the reasons why no one should ever entrust him with national responsibility.
When President Banda went for Mr Kunda, who had loyally served as Justice Minister in the Levy Mwanawasa administration, not too many eyebrows were raised, for Zambians had come to appreciate the man as a workaholic.
But for Mpombo, it was a different story, yet his name is not even worthy being mentioned in the same sentence as that of Mr Kunda’s.
So it is difficult to understand Mpombo’s frustration which makes him insult President Banda and Mr Kunda every other day. It appears even when he is asleep, all he thinks of is how he would frame his new set of insults the following morning.
But Mpombo is only human and is bound to make as many misjudgments as he consistently does nowadays.
Even as Mpombo continues to make these gaffes with gay abandon, he has his other side for which he must be credited, particularly his description of some politicians who are literally an embodiment of moral nudity.
The more one listens to Patriotic Front (PF) leader Michael Sata changing colours like a chameleon and turning solemn functions into stages for comedy, the more they are bound to agree with Mpombo’s views on the former colonial police constable.
Living manifestation of evil
“We on the Copperbelt are united. Don’t listen to political demagogues like Michael Sata. I am always saying Sata is a living manifestation of evil, he has got a spiritually and politically debauched mind,” said Mpombo in May 2006.
Four years down the line, Sata’s debauched mind is still at it and recently wanted to turn the funeral of the late Supreme Court Judge Peter Chitengi into another comedy stage.
Sata wants to turn himself into a political Bikkiloni or Diffikoti but forgets that comedians have their stage, and funerals are not one of them.
Whether you talk about Mr Bean, Sauzande, Maximo and Brighton Sinkala, these people know or knew the difference between the drama stage and public life.
For Sata, there is no telling the difference, and this is the man who is tirelessly canvassing for a vote from Zambian people whom he mistakes for a bunch of gullible electorate so that he could move into State House and turn the place into a big stage for his comical antics.
Some people just never change. No wonder United Party for National Development (UPND) leader Hakainde Hichilema says one cannot teach an old horse new tricks.
Not even the PF-UPND pact would change Sata’s way of thinking. No prizes for guessing why the alliance of two tribal parties is now in its death throes.
Sata lacks even the very basic logic necessary for guessing the difference between what is morally right and what is not.
Octopus Paul could undoubtedly do a better job than Sata.
This is why the loud-mouthed Mpombo can be credited with a distinction for describing Sata as a “living manifestation of evil”!
It is like with every passing second, all Sata thinks of is evil, evil, more evil and nothing but much more evil.
Here is a situation where President Banda flies out of Lusaka to Mfuwe on a working holiday and the President’s Special Assistant for Press and Public Relations Dickson Jere informs the nation accordingly.
While in Mfuwe, President Banda would, on his work schedule, even meet investors whom Sata—due to his xenophobic stance towards foreigners– refers to as “infesters”.
Because Sata’s mind is seemingly powered by evil, he grabs the opportunity to misinform the nation on radio that President Banda is meeting Chadian president Idris Derby in Mfuwe to cut some business deals.
Lack of diplomatic etiquette
It is supposed that any politician who considers oneself a worthy successor to a presidential office should carry and conduct themselves as such.
Diplomatic etiquette should be the hallmark of such leaders for it is in their time outside government that they even begin to win the confidence of other world leaders.
Barrak Obama did it before he became president of the most powerful nation on earth. He could have afforded the luxury of pouring scorn on other countries– as they were not a part of the US electoral college—and still win his country’s presidency.
But Mr Obama showed respect to all countries; rich or poor, enemy or ally, Christian or Muslim.
As for Sata, the best he can do is implicate a sitting president of a friendly nation, describe Turkey as a poor country, all because President Banda has traveled there and speak ill of China, a country on which the future of the global economy now rests.
In modern politics, diplomatic tact is an indispensable attribute of any presidential aspirant, as this is no longer time of the Cold War in which antagonism was the order of the day.
Not even in Iran where President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has a political stranglehold on the nation did opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi employ insulting language on countries that had a soft spot for the hardline leader.
Where then are the morals of this Sata man who uses every opportunity to tear President Banda apart?
On issues of morality, Sata is certainly impressively unimpressive.
He never sits down to learn from the way President Banda carries himself, winning the admiration and countries of many countries, big and small.
If Sata had enough intellect, he would try to employ some of President Banda’s diplomatic acumen and begin to give a new face to his own chequered political image.
But the biggest problem Sata has is that of trying to sift for negatives in all that he genuinely believes are good intentions of President Banda.
All in the name of advancing his political interests!
This is where one would agree with Mpombo when he describes Sata as having a “spiritually and politically debauched mind”.
Zambian people now know Mpombo too well. He has made himself a specialist on all matters related to President Banda’s governance.
He always has to find something to say against President Banda using bombastic words and military terminology he learnt while serving as Zambia’s Defence Minister.
A comedian for a Defence minister, what a risk to national security!
Currently, Mpombo is in the news following a statement he made to QFM Radio that President Banda had stopped over in South Africa to watch Spain and Netherlands play in the final of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
At the time the match was being played in Johannesburg, the president had already arrived in Ankara for a three-day official visit.
Wicked mind
This is what a wicked mind does; it always looks for faults where there are none and the perpetrator of such vice is eventually exposed to the entire world.
Right now, South Africa, Turkey, Spain, Netherlands, Zambia and the entire world know that there is someone by the name Mpombo who, in attempting to endear himself to President Banda’s political opponents, told a lie that the Zambian Head of State was watching the World Cup final in Johannesburg.
Now that Mpombo has been exposed, he is blaming a QFM Radio reporter for allegedly misleading him.
It is almost unimaginable that Zambia’s security was at one time in the hands of Mpombo. God has really being merciful with this poor country.
Mpombo has refused to apologise for his debasing lie and is now embroiled in a battle with QFM Radio, insisting that the station should be the one to apologise. What a circus by Zambia’s “Mr Bombastic”!
Mpombo’s public lie is not an isolated case as it came on the heels of a similar one from Sata who, weeks earlier, had shamelessly told the nation that President Banda had sneaked into South Africa to watch the 2010 FIFA World Cup match between Brazil and Ivory Coast and proceeded to Cape Town for a knee surgery before heading to Namibia for a State visit.
Yet, it was public knowledge that, due to a punishing work schedule at home, the president had decided not to go for the official opening of the World Cup on June 11 until an appropriate time.
The President did inform the Zambian media later that he would, instead, go and watch the Brazil versus Ivory Coast match on June 20, which he did as he headed for the Namibian official visit.
Sata termed President Banda’s trip “sneaking out” and added the Cape Town bit so as to incite the Zambian public against their Head of State.
This is what ungrateful people do. They easily forget where they are coming from. It is difficult to find a person who has given Sata more political favours than Second Republican President Frederick Chiluba.
But what does Sata do nowadays? He vilifies Dr Chiluba every other day, and for no other reason that that the former president has shifted his support—which gave the PF the Copperbelt, Northern and Luapula provinces in the 2006 elections—to the ruling MMD.
It is this kind of behaviour that makes Mpombo describe Sata as a “political demagogue”.
High priest of demagoguery
Even this is perhaps an understatement: “High priest of political demagoguery” sounds more appropriate.
Better still, nothing beats “living manifestation of evil”.
Sata is eternally ungrateful, and this explains why he never ever appreciates what people do for him; even the votes he received from the Copperbelt, Northern and Luapula Provinces in 2006 and 2008 would mean nothing to him if he decided to chart a another selfish political course
President Banda was Republican vice-president when Sata fell ill and was flown to South Africa for treatment in 2008.
Today, when President Banda goes to South Africa for treatment, it is a big issue. Sata wants Zambians to forget that he was at one time Health minister and never did anything to improve health facilities to a level where personalities like him would not have to be flown to South Africa when they were afflicted with a heart ailment.
It was fine for Sata to be flown to South Africa. Vice-President Kunda, in Sata’s opinion, did not deserve specialist treatment.
When Mr Kunda fell ill early this year and went to South Africa to seek treatment, what one would have been expected from a compassionate political leader was a get-well message to the Kunda family.
Instead, Sata made Mr Kunda’s health a campaign issue at political rallies during the Milanzi by-election.
Sata accused the Banda administration of applying double standards by allegedly letting Milanzi Member of Parliament Reuben Chisanga Banda die in the University Teaching Hospital while Mr Kunda was flown to South Africa.
As if to prove that Mpombo was right in describing him as a living manifestation of evil, Sata even had to go to the extent of phoning Zambia’s High Commissioner to South Africa Leslie Mbula to “confirm” that Mr Kunda was dead.
Whatever benefits Sata could have derived from Mr Kunda’s death, no one knows.
Could it not have been more appropriate for Sata to call President Banda— besides, they are traditional cousins— to get that confirmation?
Serious-minded politicians should have the capacity to differentiate comedy from serious issues.
Now, if a person can be described by the likes of Mpombo as being of a debauched mind, then that must be an extremely wicked human being not fit to run for public office.
Indeed, Sata is a personification of anything and everything that is morally nude.
*Views expressed in this feature are entirely the author’s and do not reflect those held by the Zambia News Features and its editorial board.
(Contact us at editor@zambianewsfeatures.com)