Perspective: Of “the same things all over again” and the constitution

By a Special Correspondent
President Michael Sata confounded many by his last minute decision to do away with official speeches at the march-past in Lusaka to commemorate Labour Day 2014 on May 1.

He was the guest of honour and as has become customary nowadays had the first president Dr. Kenneth Kaunda in tow.

It was a high level occasion with a captive audience that any worthy politician would savour. But on this occasion, the president who would not have missed such an opportunity when he was in opposition appeared to be plagued by some inexplicable discomfort!

He appeared irritable and to be in hurry to bring proceedings to a close which he achieved by dramatically curtailing the programme. He seemed genuinely anxious to be rid of the ceremony and left in a huff and some insist that he actually fled after declaring:

“There will be no speeches. We shall just be talking about the same things all over again. Go and reflect and improve on workers conditions… I am told there are awards to be presented. Mr. Shamenda can present the awards because I don’t see why we should be presenting awards-I know how the workers suffer. National anthem please,” he is quoted as having said as he brought proceedings to a speedy and untimely end and…boom… he was gone!

The “indecent haste” at best suggested dereliction of duty or of a “new culture” of treating national set-pieces in a cavalier fashion and at worst of a growing disdain for the people because after all the general election is over.

Troubling questions have thus arisen around the true state of affairs at Zambia’s executive mansion-State House.The sense created by the Labour Day spectacle or debacle was that things there could be rapidly unraveling – falling apart and that like in late Chinua Achebe’s novel in this case too, the centre can no longer hold. Does State House still function and can leadership still be reasonably expected from there anymore? What is the reason for all the apparent anxieties?

That rather ill-starred debacle or spectacle on Labour Day left a bad taste in the mouth. It led to fears of growing fallibility at the top and that indeed all may not be well. Nothing that has been said or done so far has dispelled that impression.
Of course, the president’s spokesman George Chellah was quick to reassure when he responded to the rather pointed demand of the MMD leader Nevers Mumba for a clear statement on whether after that walkaway the president was still up to the demands of his office and station.

All is well, according to him: The president is fit, healthy and is always in the office to discharge of his functions and as ever, the Labour Minister Fackson Shamenda also lept to the president’s defence.

The George Chellah riposte came with the usual low and coarse “jabs” that only demean the highest office in the land aimed at the MMD leader. But after the president was widely speculated to have inexplicably fled Labour Day, Mumba was on solid ground:

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“If there is a deeper problem that our President is facing and he is not able to carry out the responsibility of the office of President…it is noble and honourable for State House and his government to tell the Zambian people that he is unable to carry out the responsibilities as a President.”

That found ready resonance among all who were taken aback on May 1 especially since what was said in the president’s defence sounded laboriously sanitized and only meant to white-wash what many now fear to be an emerging but real leadership crisis.

Certainly, what was on public display on May 1 was completely at variance with what the defenders tried to propagate. On that occasion, the president seemed tired, impatient, bored or hard-pressed in some other way and rather inexplicably all at once! He was anxious to leave what from his reported remarks he appears to have considereda sufferance or charade-a veritable waste of his time!

This was a man in a hurry and outwardly utterly bored by “the same things all over again.” But there is surely always a certain tedium or drudgery attached even to the most high profile or desirable job and the solution is not widely thought to be to walk away or seek short-cuts. Could it be that State House has turned out to less hospitable than it seemed from the outside? For, it does sometimes appear that the main attraction to it could have been an inability to comprehend that “the same things all over again” are part of its essential make up.

It now in fact appears that the growing irritation with or inability to bring a fresh perspective to “the same things all over again” is the reason for the growing role of Dr. Kaunda as controversial as that may be considering that he was popularly voted out of that office! Whether it can be legal or right to now bring him in by the backdoor is a big question.

What is truly troubling though about the emerging “walkaway or find some expedient short-cut” approach is the question of how many other pressing or even routine national issues are given similar short shrift in preference to short-cuts in order to relieve the tedium of going over “the same things all over again?” The fear is it could well be all matters that are referred there!

It stands to reason that this publicly exhibited irritation or boredom with public affairs can only lead to scanty or no real attention paid to weighty national issues simply because they are “the same things all over again.” There are fears that there is premature closure of many issues just to be rid of them as with Labour Day 2014 and that this has become the norm especially since it seems from what the president had to say the administration is making no progress and has to contend only with“the same issues all over again.” So, this may have in fact been an honest confession to having hit the dead end!

What is considered “new” such as the swearing in of new appointees mainly political failures and reportedly relatives has been on-going without interruption since September 2011! Swearing in is relished and there is clearly no shortage of appetite for more!

But short-cuts in all other matters now appear to be the norm and to be preferred because they circumvent having to go over “the same things all over again.”But most of these short-cuts have been uncommonly brutal and treacherous in their effects.

The dismissal of nurses from the UTH and other hospitals last year was one. It was utterly appalling. For, whatever else may have happened, the nurses were essentially looking up to their leaders for relief. They got a kick in the teeth instead! Shame- and May God have mercy on our poor souls!

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In one of the more mysterious and shameful short-cuts so far, Chief Mwamba of the Bemba who at the time was only one in line to succeed to the paramountcy had government recognition withdrawn by presidential edict for obscure reasons. The result is a national disgrace. Not even the colonial governors had the temerity to stop the enthroning of chiefs based on Zambia tradition!

There is clearly a “new normal” emerging and a large part of it is the hiring and maintaining of goons to do physical harm to political opponents. This, nearly 50 years after independence! It has disgraced Zambia and given the impression that the country is now well on that trajectory that has led to catastrophe elsewhere in Africa.

The attack on the prayer meeting in Matero last year was for instance replete with shades of the Nigerian Boko-Haram. It is that infamous group that has distinguished itself by attacking churches and church-goers. It can only be a matter of deep regret and concern that those cut-throats already have disciples in Zambia!

Clearly, political violence is a major policy rooted in the very upper reaches of the governing party. After that savage and uncalled for attack on the UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema in Ndola which was roundly condemned, there was a thinly disguised but characteristically disjointed rejoinder from the “warlord” himself and no prizes for guessing please. But it came in the form of an incoherent joint statement by the provincial governing party chairmen for Lusaka and the Copperbelt.

They sought to justify the violence on the basis of there being too many “insults” in on-line publications! The connection was hard to fathom but the poorly tutored “enforcers” could not know! They simply carried out the sacred orders and earned their keep- in taxpayer’s money of course!

Serious as the Ndola incident was nobody has so far been charged. Police efficiency is now judged only by how fast they arrest or in some other way frustrate opposition leaders. The police have come to understand that only too well and to the extent that many know their real function, they are probably in more trouble than is generally acknowledged.

But there is no short-cut to the constitution making process. The sequence is clear: release of the draft, appointment of a referendum commission followed by the referendum itself. Period. There is no short-cut even if it may be part of what is seen as the “same things all over again.”

For, seriously and for the avoidance of any doubt: there is no short-cut to the new constitution-none at all and fleeing from it as from Labour Day 2014 by anyone does not appear feasible!