The dismissal of Southern Province Political Secretary Brian Hapunda did not come as a surprise; maybe the only surprise was how long it had taken to fire Hapunda. Hapunda’s appointment to borrow from legal parlance was ab initio meaning it was ‘void from the beginning’.
Shortly after the Patriotic Front government took over power in September 2011 opportunistic Hapunda sprung up to join the PF at the banquet, shedding off his then United Party for National Development (UPND) DNA and sung louder than the long time PF defenders.
Long standing PF foot soldiers like Erick Chanda were thrown out the cold as Hapunda took the limelight. But being the naïve enthusiastic political noise maker he has always been, Hapunda forgot one thing – old habits die hard.
He had not become PF by simply soliciting and getting a position and was initially stationed in Lusaka as youth chairperson but soon the PF establishment sensed his hunger for the limelight and shunted him to the quieter waters of Southern Province carrying an obscure role modeled along the Communist style politics.
Without any political clout the PF aligned media were forced to tolerate him as he issued statements and sprung to react to anything at the slightest hint including demands for the expulsion of Kabwata Member of Parliament Given Lubinda.
Hapunda enjoyed acres of space to spew his rubbish on Lubinda but the same vomit has caught up with him in the same medium he mistakenly thought had adopted him as the darling source.
For a man who was laundering his tattered image at the University of Zambia where in 2007 he was bundled out of campus for being found with a leakage in an exam room, it was surely a matter of time. All this information is a matter of public record.
The brother who had just entered unionism as University of Zambia Students Union Secretary General had his wings clipped as he fizzled into the cold. He was later resurrected by the opposition United Party for National Development that picked him at Cavendish where he was trying to pick up what remained of his public image.
The UPND gave him a lifeline as he fed off them until the PF won power and he took the first flight out. They never said anything but once he nestled into the hot seat in Southern Province, he always threw jibes at them.
There is nothing he has never called them – regionalists, opportunists, hoodlums, cheats and now he is back in the cold. And you can imagine the number of PF cadres that will be falling over each other to remind Zambians what a ‘crook’ he has always been. After all His Excellency has set the tone and the cadres will surely take the hint.
The brother did not only solicit for money once high on anything alcoholic but did do police drills, firing arms in night clubs and also moved with a party headed paper intimidating business persons with his party connections. He recently threw his powers around a magistrate when they differed in Livingstone town.
But for now, Hapunda will for the umpteenth time take his place in the gutter and look back on what could have been had he not fallen prey to his excesses once again. In the end to borrow from one Robert Nesta Marley “What should be must be” and for brother Hapunda, his hour was always going to come and now is the time to come aboard reality.
No illusion of power under grand titles like political secretary and in true PF STYLE his exit may have marked the end of a position created solely for him. In the two years PF have been in power, we have only heard one POLITICAL secretary! Shame.
Maybe brother General Secretary Wynter KABIMBA could learn something here – he has no political clout and somehow seems to think he is this political oracle BUT hey sir your hour too is coming.
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