THE Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) deserves unqualified commendation for a job well done during the combined national registration card (NRC) and voter registration campaign that it conducted in readiness for next year’s general elections.
Reports from every corner of the Republic have indicated that most eligible Zambians had come forward to register as voters and obtain their NRCs without which they would not be allowed to vote for their preferred presidential, parliamentary and local government representatives.
Although the exercise went smoothly, it was marred by incidents of a number of foreigners masquerading as Zambians who tried to obtain the national identity cards and register as voters.
Fortunately, most – if not all – of the would-be fraudsters were stopped in their tracks thanks to alert ECZ and Zambia Police.
It must be realised that if such pretenders had not been identified they would have infiltrated Zambian ranks, thereby imperilling the nation’s security.
Every patriotic Zambian who knows of a foreigner or refugee who obtained a national registration card and registered as a voter for the 2016 elections would be failing in their duty if they do not report such individuals to the relevant authorities.
That some wealthy foreigners could have used corrupt means to acquire Zambian citizenship and registered as voters or stood as councillors, ward leaders or parliamentary candidates cannot be ruled out.
In fact, does anyone remember the case of an Angolan refugee who was arrested after being elected as a Member of Parliament (MP) on the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) ticket during the September 2011 tripartite elections?
It was reported at the time that a suspected Angola refugee was arrested by immigration officers after securing a seat in the Zambian Parliament following the presidential, parliamentary and local government elections.
The man, Robert Chikesi, of the then ruling MMD, was elected Member of Parliament for Mangango Constituency in Kaoma District in Western Province.
Geographically, Zambia’s Western Province shares a long border with Angola, where a flood of refugees poured into the country during the Angolan civil war involving the MPLA government troops and UNITA rebels of the late Jonas Savimbi that erupted after the former Portuguese colony gained its independence in 1975.
Chikesi appeared before the magistrate’s court in Kaoma District and was initially granted K1 million bail.
He was charged with fraudulently obtaining a Zambian NRC and giving false information to a public officer.
News about the Angolan refugee’s clandestine activities came to light after former Anglican Church Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, paid a courtesy call on President Michael Sata at State House in Lusaka.
President Sata said that the MMD, the former ruling party, had reportedly ‘offered’ national registration cards to some refugees in Western Province who participated in electing Chikesi.
He said one of the refugees used his card to ‘worm his way to the National Assembly’, prompting Home Affairs Minister, Kennedy Sakeni (late) – a former intelligence officer – to issue warnings against people fraudulently obtaining Zambian citizenship documents.
There were also uncontested reports and allegations that the MMD – in its desperate attempt to cling on to power – had even offered NRCs to people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where Senior Chief Mwata Kazembe had fled to after the disturbances that broke out following Mr Sata’s and the Patriotic Front’s election victory.
It is against this backdrop that I feel the ECZ and security forces deserve praise because without them Zambians would end up electing some dubious characters with hidden motives as their councillors, mayors and parliamentarians.
Zambia continues to receive refugees and asylum-seekers from trouble-torn countries in Africa and beyond, so we cannot afford to drop our guard.
Meanwhile, I also recall the fact that soon after his electoral triumph, State House announced that President Sata would not attend the 15th Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Head of States summit in Malawi, where he was declared as a Prohibited Immigrant (PI) in March 2007.
Mr Sata was then leading the PF that had just controversially lost the 2006 election that his supporters and independent observers believed he should have won.
If my recollection is right, the COMESA summit in Malawi would have been Mr Sata’s first international outing as Zambia’s fifth Republican President following his electoral victory against then President Rupiah Banda.
As it turned out, Zambia was instead represented by Vice-President, Dr Guy Scott, the first ‘white’ Zambian to occupy the post in the young nation’s chequered history.
As leader of the opposition, King Cobra, as Mr Sata was fondly called, could not go to Malawi where he was on March 15, 2007 prevented from meeting with former Malawian President Bakili Muluzi when he (Sata) arrived at Chileka International Airport.
No reasons were given for Mr Sata’s classification as an unwanted visitor by immigration officers in Malawi.
One explanation, according to my interpretation of events, is that Mr Sata was at some stage a strong supporter of ‘nationalist China’ – Taiwan –  and he used to chide the Chinese contractors for not abiding by Zambian labour laws, safety standards and for their ‘propensity’ to procure ‘Zambian copper without adding value to it within the country’.
I remember the fact that the Zambian leader protested that Malawi’s move to throw him out of their country violated Commonwealth ideals because it was not illegal for an opposition leader from a member-country to visit another country.
He, therefore, demanded an apology from the Malawian President, the late Bingu wa Mutharika who was in good books with the ruling MMD leadership at the time.
We were told that Mr Sata had been whisked out of Blantyre and escorted by immigration officers to Mwami border, which is nearer to Chipata in Zambia’s Eastern Province. Furious at the unfair treatment he (Sata) commenced proceedings in court in Malawi through a local lawyer.
From my knowledge, this court case remained in abeyance when he was finally elected as Zambia’s fifth President in September 2011 – three years before he died in a London hospital.
Zambia, which was the first Southern African country to establish diplomatic relations with Peking (Beijing), could not recognise Taipei (Taiwan) as a separate state because under founding President Kenneth Kaunda, it adhered to the “One China” policy.
The young generation may also not be aware of this historical fact.
Due to ideological differences and preferences among the various Zambian political parties, President Levy Mwanawasa, for example, once refused to tour a Taiwanese pavilion while attending the Swaziland International Trade Fair because he, like Dr Kaunda, backed mainland China as the supreme power.
So when the political temperature in Zambia started rising and the PF threatening to dislodge the MMD from office, Dr Mwanawasa was naturally quick to cry foul that ‘Taiwan was financially supporting the PF’.
In a tit-for-tat exchange the PF fired back, claiming that it had information that ‘mainland China was financially and materially supporting the MMD’.
Looking back, it is calming to realise that indeed in politics there are no permanent enemies because upon his rise to power, Mr Sata and the Chinese almost immediately mended fences – and the results now are there for everyone to to see.
Moreover, China and Zambia had been all-weather friends since independence in 1964 during which period Beijing even helped construct the all-important Tanzania, Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) between Dar es Salaam on the East African coast and Kapiri-Mposhi in central Zambia.
Chinese leader, Chairman Mao Tse Tung and his people came to Zambia’s rescue at a time when most Western countries dismissed the railway line project that provided the country with an outlet to the sea, as unnecessary and commercially unprofitable.
In addition to that, Zambia and Malawi have since established solid diplomatic ties with China. Zambia needs China with which it had by October 2011 a trade surplus of US$2.2 billion due to the Asian economic giant’s high demand for base metals, especially copper, which is Zambia’s principal foreign exchange earner.
To confirm the thawing in Beijing-Lusaka ties, Mr Zhou Yuxiao, who was by then the Chinese ambassador to Zambia, was the first diplomat to pay a courtesy call on Mr Sata soon after former President Banda left State House.
A few days ago, I drove on the same route that President Sata used in Gaborone when he made his first State visit to Botswana in March 2012 and wondered what else Zambia would have accomplished by next year had he lived long enough to serve his first five-year term (2011-2016).
But during his brief three-year tenure, the ‘irrepressible’ Sata initiated many development projects for the benefit of the entire nation, a legacy that must be preserved by ensuring no foreigner sneaks in and steals the show.
Comments: alfredmulenga777@gmail.com.