By PERPETUAL SICHIKWENKWE –
OPPOSITION United Party for National Development (UPND) president Hakainde Hichilema has dragged two public media houses and Patriotic Front (PF) Secretary‎ General Davies Chama to court for alleged defamation of character.
Mr Hichilema has sued the Times of Zambia and Zambia Daily Mail.
He has further sued PF vice chairperson for media and publicity Sunday Chanda and his counterpart, PF Lusaka Province youth chairperson Kennedy Kamba.
He wants the Lusaka High Court to order all the defendants to pay K1 million each in damages for alleged defamation of character and further restrain them from publishing similar defamatory words against him.
Mr Hichilema has through his lawyers filed two separate legal suits, but Mr Chama is cited in both.
In the Times of Zambia legal suit, Mr Hichilema alleges that on December 28, 2015, the newspaper published a story under the headline “PF slams tribal remarks” and another article accusing him of having castigated a chieftness headlined “Refute tribal remarks HH told “, which article was published in the Sunday Times of Zambia on December 27, 2015.
Mr Hichilema said the articles, which were quoting Mr Chama, Mr Chanda and Mr Kamba, went viral to a vast audience of the Zambian people including the international community, church, family and his friends.
For the Zambia Daily Mail, Mr Hichilema said the newspaper published an article on December 27, 2015 under the headline ‘Its shameful to welcome Bembas-HH and another one on December 28, 2015 alleging that he was not a good leader because he has continued to issue tribal remarks.
Mr Hichilema said that the words complained of were in their ordinary and natural meaning understood to mean that he was not fit to be a president of UPND and let alone, Republican president.
That he is a tribalist who will never preside over critical affairs of the country and that he is bitter because Mr Chama visited the Southern Province.
Mr Hichilema said the words were also understood to mean that he had failed to condemn the tribal political cradle on which his political career was birthed following the death of UPND founding leader Anderson Mazoka.
He has asked the court to grant him an injunction restraining the defendants, their agents, servants or employees from commenting, publishing, and uttering similar words against him.