To read sports minister Chishimba Kambwili’s outbursts in reaction to fourth Republican president Rupiah Banda’s comments crediting freelance journalist Chanda Chimba III for Stand Up for Zambia documentaries is not surprising. It’s not news anymore.
But anything Rupiah says or indeed happenings around Chanda Chimba, especially when it is bad news, will be a cup of tea to Fred M’membe’s Post Newspaper. And it is understandable. M’membe will feast on anything that discredits the credit Chanda Chimba is now receiving from a cross-section of Zambians. He hates Chanda Chimba with the passion that if he had a way, he will rather see him dead.
M’membe has vowed see Chanda Chimba suffer for exposing the hypocrite Zambians did not know had for years abused the journalism profession to fight a personal agenda that would create a business empire.
The chief PF propagandists will do anything to discredit Chanda Chimba or Rupiah and will use his ‘enemies’ like Kambwili, who he has made clear he dislikes for fighting Wynter Kabimba within the PF, to target his other enemies outside the ruling party.
Similarly, the likes of Kambwili will do anything to attack the credits Chanda Chimba is scoring for correctly predicting what a hell of leadership Zambians had been deceived to elect in September 2011.
But calling Chanda Chimba’s work stupid and demonsing the former Head of State for merely endorsing what the same people including those in PF are saying on the streets about events in Zambia can’t pass without response.
Today, Chanda Chimba is called a ‘prophet’ which in biblical sense he is not. But in literal sense, those that didn’t give him the chance when documentating the Zambia we were to endure under the PF government are eulogizing him.
Who is Kambwili to stop Zambians from celebrating Chanda Chimba’s work? If Kambwili is having too much of his scrap metal business, it is not Rupiah or Chanda Chimba to blame.
They warned us but we behaved in the proverbial “you’ve got eyes, but you can’t see” and “you’ve got ears but you can’t hear.” All what majority of voters did was to give Chanda Chimba’s documentaries a blind eye and a deaf ear. And the price we are pay? The opposite of the low fuel, mealie meal prices, lower communication and electricity tariffs, lower taxes, more jobs, constitution in 90 days, restoration of the Barotseland Agreement, enactment of the Freedom of Information Bill to mention but a few.
If Zambians cared to listen, Chanda Chimba’s warning would have kept the country away from this mess. In hindsight, they are all regretting and calling him a ‘prophet’ when he was merely helping them jolt their minds which the late president Levy Mwanawasa, perhaps rightly, described as good at forgetting.
But what is stupidity? The simplest of definitions that can be thought of is behavior that shows a lack of good sense or judgment. And who between Chanda Chimba, Rupiah or Kambwili and his supporters will fit that definition? Kambwili of course.
You will expect a graduate from Copperstone University to understand the definition of stupidity. Anyway its still debatable if Kambwili truly saw the inside of any classroom at Copperstone University. That’s why he was excited to splash adverts all over the public media for a degree he didn’t labour to earn.
The comfort a statesman like Rupiah should take is from a wise saying stating “talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.” This is what Kambwili is trying to do when being giving free extra lessons.
Chanda Chimba’s documentaries, which can also be found on the internet, were packages compiled to give the Zambian people information about the politics of the 2011 elections.
And most if not all that Chanda Chimba referred to in his documentaries have come to pass even before President Michael Sata clocks two and half years in office.
Inasmuch as Kambwili is entitled to an opinion that opinion must be informed in respect of the position he holds because no one, which the Luanshya MP is, is entitled to be ignorant.
But since Kambwili has chosen to be ignorant and dismiss Chanda Chimba III’s work, we will try – where Copperstone University may have failed – to demonstrate stupidity to him as follows in 10 simple ways;
1. Stupidity is obtaining a Bachelors degree in Development Studies at Copperstone University but asking a poorly funded ministry you are tasked to supervise to splash adverts in the public media with congratulatory messages of yourself.
2. Stupidity is naming a sports facility 90 Days Legacy Swimming Pool when you never believed in the same 90 days theory.
3. Stupidity is being a national youth chairman whose members are hacking each other to death like in the case of Menyani Zulu and you tell us there was more violence in the MMD than today without citing a single case to back you claim.
4. Stupidity is being sent to a foreign country where you embarrass your appointing authority with lumpen behaviour thinking that you are loading scrap metal.
5. Stupidity is calling Fr Bwalya mad when he exposes your presidential ambitions which three months later are clearly manifested.
6. Stupidity is being reshuffled from a sensitive ministry for failing to respect investors.
7. Stupidity is promising Zambian school leavers jobs through a Zambia National Service programme you have not designed and you can no longer talk about.
8. Stupidity is thinking ukupono (beating) or calling people bafikala is the only way out to settling differences.
9. Stupidity is depriving the very youth you claim to represent in Luanshya land meant for recreation to benefit your cows.
10.Stupidity is being called a useless minister and you respond; “Yes sir!”
If Copperstone University has done a good job with bestowing Kambwili a Bachelors Degree, the summarized and simple 10 notes of describing stupidity should help him understand what an idiot he is.
It’s actually very good that stupidity isn’t punishable by death because if it was, chaps like Chishimba Kambwili will be languishing and gnashing their teeth in hell.
But we are here on earth with them and must tolerate their stupidity working hard to ensure it’s not a political curse to our country.
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