Leader of United Party of National Development (UNPD) Hakainde Hichilema who is also Zambia’s leader of opposition has hailed Malawi president Lazarus Chakwera for standing up against impunity and injustice.
Hichilema said this in a press statement made available to Face of Malawi after president Chakwera paid a state visit to the Neighboring Zambia yesterday.
The statement which started with welcoming remarks described Chakwera as a leader who belongs to “a new generation of African Patriots and distinguished leaders who found themselves in unusual circumstances of a new struggle against tyrannical leaders, that hail from amongst Africans themselves”
Hichilema popularly known as HH among Zambians continues that Chakwera is one of the African leaders who are labeled as enemies of the state for standing up and fight for their people.
“President Chakwera belongs to Leaders that fight and oppress their own people and use ethnicity to subjugate and divide the masses, for political expediency.
President Chakwera belongs to a breed of African nationalists who are fast tracked as enemies of the state, simply because they chose to participate in the culture of democracy that ordinarily allows for divergent views,” Hichilema said.
Quoting Chakwera’s acceptance speech as President of the Republic of Malawi which he delivered on July 1, 2020, Hichilema said Chakwera addressed the profound paradox of African politics.
“For of what use is freedom from oppression if you are slave to starvation? Or freedom from colonialism if you are slave to tribalism? Of what use is freedom from tyranny if you are a slave to poverty?” direct words of President Chakwera from his acceptance speech.
According to HH, Africa in general and Zambia in particular will now rely on distinguished statesmen like President Chakwera, who prior to being President, vigorously fought against dictatorship, discrimination, corruption and institutional impunity.
He added; “Africans now depend on this African champion of democracy, to set aside African leaders’ usual diplomatic niceties and empty chatter, and truthfully speak on behalf of Africans’ daily struggles against despotic leaders that litter the continent, and the acute poverty and suffering they subject our people to, due to greed, corruption and mismanagement of public resources.”
