PRESIDENT SATA, PATRIOTIC FRONT GOVERNMENT BORING OVER CONSTITUTION

Indeed, anything short of what the people need will be an animal driven constitution because it will represent nothing but the greedy of those who have no human heart for this country that has waited for a lengthy time for a constitution that inspires everyone regardless of their political station in life.

 

By Nyalubinge Ngwende

Yawning! This is because President Michael Sata and the Patriotic Front government are seriously BORING, more especially over the constitution making process. The President and PF are really disappointing and disgusting. 

Nobody objects to the fact that the PF government is borrowing heavily to invest in education, health and road infrastructure as well as create more civil service jobs. So long as each community will have a school where our children can go (albeit without quality teachers and high failure rate), every child will have a place in a university for a piece of paper called a degree (sadly so without skills that produce anything in the economy), and construction of a health centre at every other corner of a village bush path (where government fails to deploy health personnel and put equipment required to save a mother in need of obstetric emergency), the wastage matters little.

Those are Patriotic Front government and President Michael Sata’s choices. The wastage may be forgiven because our President is trying his best on things that he little understands and we were warned by former President Kenneth Kaunda that he, Sata, could not make a better President but a governor who needed someone to supervise him. We did not listen!

But when it comes to the constitution, President Sata will not fool us. The building of roads, universities, more schools and health facilities come to mean nothing if the citizens are enslaved by political tyranny that refuses to hand them a constitution meant to unleash their full liberties and broaden opportunities for citizens, regardless of their geographical position on the global map. 

A people driven constitution is our choice and not that of PF! 

We know that government has the duty to guide the formulation of a new constitution, but it is really boring when President Sata and his Justice Minister Wynter Kabimba thinks we the people do not need to care about which direction the constitution making process must take. After all, a constitution we are making is not for the PF and President Sata, it is for the 13 million Zambians at present and the more children to be born tomorrow there after the PF and Sata are long swallowed in the harsh reality of history. The worst could be the hottest part of hell!

When civil society activists are talking of a people driven constitution, they mean a good document that will stand the test of time; with statutes that meet the aspirations of the people and one that the people themselves will agree to. 

Zambians want the clauses like 50 plus one, dual citizenship, the removal of the parentage clause that restricts presidential candidature only to citizens with both parents who are born here, while those with one parent who is not Zambian are barred. They also need the Bill of Rights to be judiciable and the reduced powers of the President. Further it is their desire to clear the gray areas that have come to compromise the judiciary, in order to ensure clear lines of separation of powers among the three arms of government. 

Yaba!

It is BORING to continue reminding President Sata that he told the country he was going to deliver a people driven constitution within 90 Days of assuming office. Sir, we are now in the third year of your government and months are piling since the Technical Committee you appointed to draft completed their job. You are blocking them from releasing it simultaneously to you and the general public.

We will object to any further wasteful expenditure that may result from the failure of President Sata and PF giving us the constitution that he promised he would deliver.

This is why it is so BORING to listen to you President Michael Sata challenge civil society, the church and other citizens pushing for the enactment of a new people driven constitution to state whether they have ever seen an animal driven constitution.

Indeed, anything short of what the people need will be an animal driven constitution because it will represent nothing but the greedy of those who have no human heart for this country that has waited for a lengthy time for a constitution that inspires everyone regardless of their political station in life.

Such selfishness is found among animals—the monkeys—which a Russian philosopher presented as thoughtless and always trying to work alone. With a bunch of bananas hanging from up high, the monkeys could have easily reached the bunch by putting the crates available on top of each other. Alas, in the monkey world each primate chose to carry and stand on its own crate, ending up not getting any because of greedy.

NN