28/06/2020
THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT BILL 2019(BILL 10), A BILL BY THE PEOPLE OF BULOZI, FOR THE PEOPLE OF BULOZI, AND SADLY AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF BULOZI
By Mubita Mwala.
They say if you keep misdiagnosing a problem, you will never find a cure for it. We the people of BULOZI must finally acknowledge that we are our own worst enemy, we have been largely responsible for our current state of affairs, and that only WE, can get ourselves out of this quagmire.
Almost to a person we have blamed those in the leadership of the Patriotic Front for the current contentious BILL 10 and what damage it aims to cause to our beautiful land and its people. On close inspection however, one discovers that yes the eventual beneficiaries of this Bill 10 will be those in the leadership of the PF and its government, but the main players in its life are WE, the people of BULOZI. You ask how so? Well here are my thoughts in brief:
1. Conception:
Bill 10 was conceived by our very own Mr. Given Lubinda MP, the minister of Justice. This was his brainchild that he started pushing for soon after the general elections in 2016 under the guise of what he termed curing some lacunas. He championed it and when the country of Zambia was set for National Dialogue between the main political players, he saw his opportunity and hijacked those would be talks with his New body, THE NATIONAL DIALOGUE FORUM (NDF).
2. National consensus :
Once Mr. Given Lubinda had managed to convince the leadership of his party about the establishment of the NDF, he went ahead and made sure they picked a man of such high academic standing to preside over the affairs of this body. Who did they choose? OUR VERY OWN Professor Muyunda Mwanalushi, Chancellor of the Copperbelt University. Fraught with irregularities as the NDF was, WE so determinedly pushed through and adopted its resolutions.
3. Legal Framework:
Having gone through what Mr Lubinda termed National Consensus, never mind the fact that a key player, our very own Traditional Authority, the Barotse Royal Establishment did not take part, THE Bill now had to undergo a legal framework, to give it its legal standing (if you will). Step up the Attorney General’s chambers under the very able leadership of “OUR VERY OWN” Mr Likando Kalaluka, Attorney General of the republic of Zambia.
4. National assembly adoption:
Fast forward to February 2020. President Lungu has predictably assented to Bill 10 and it is now before the National Assembly for adoption. The Patriotic Front do not have the Two thirds majority required to pass the Bill into Law. They need some opposition UPND MP’s to vote with them. Step forward “OUR VERY OWN” PROFESSOR Geoffrey Lungwangwa the Nalikwanda MP and his Senanga counterpart Mr Mulowa.
Had these two not broken with their Party’s position, Bill 10 would have died in February 2020. These TWO gave it life and by offering themselves up, they gave Mr Lubinda reason to believe there could be more like these two, to be coerced.
So how is this Bill “A Bill by the people of Bulozi, for the people of Bulozi and against the people of Bulozi?
We, we the people of BULOZI conceived this bill, (when I say WE, I mean our people from Bulozi), we put into it, clauses that we knew for sure to be detrimental to BULOZI. We then presided over the deliberations of those clauses at the NDF, fully aware of their harm to our homeland. We went further to give those clauses their legal backing and finally made sure or almost did, that they passed through the National assembly.
We did all that. At any point throughout that process we could have stopped to consider the damage we were doing to Bulozi, but we did not. We pressed on full steam ahead.
The question is if we could do all that for something against our own homeland, could we not have done so for something favoring FOR OUR OWN HOMELAND?
