It is sometimes said that the first law of survival is "When in hole stop digging".
The events surrounding the President’s “private” trip to India makes very sad reading and demonstrate that in this information age you can not easily fool people. With so many sources of independent sources information, liars will always be found out.
We all know that the President was in Botswana early last week where he held a meeting with the Zambian Diaspora among other commitments. He then left for India without the nation being informed. When the news of his departure started filtering on the internet, the government was forced to issue a statement to say he was on a private visit to India. A couple of days later, Indian news sources started reporting that the President was actually undergoing medical procedures in the country. This was not confirmed by the government. However, the President’s trip suddenly changed from being private to an investment promotion trip! His Press Assistant started furnishing us with details of meetings with potential investors and pictures to show the big man was in good health. To sceptics like me, this was statehouse trying to treat the people of Zambia like fools or under fives!
The President holds the highest public office in the land. He also wields a lot of power. Surely the people of this great country deserve to know issues about his whereabouts and his health. A simple statement from Statehouse last week to say the President was going to travel to India to seek medical treatment and will then hold meetings potential investors would have spared them all this embarrassment. There is need to learn from past mistakes. When the late Levy Mwanawasa was in London undergoing treatment for a stroke, we were told he is well and jogging in Hyde Park! We all knew this was a load of cobblers! Micheal Sata, as leader of the opposition, was at the forefront of people calling for an independent panel of medical experts to be assembled to assess Mwanawasa’s condition.
Let’s assume the President had always planned to take this 10 day private visit to India and we are all just being plain old sceptics, then we have to question his priorities. Everyone knew that the Barotse National Council was taking place this week and would most likely lead to inflammatory resolutions. As Zambians we would have expected the President to be in the country to calm the situation and take charge. Meeting potential “investors” or a private visit could have waited.
Coming back to the opening line of this post, the Government should have stopped digging the hole they found themselves in last week and told people the truth. Even their avid supporters such as Fred Mmembe and Father Bwalya agree that this has been handled very badly.
The PANEL
