14/07/2025
Why are Tongas, Lozis, and Zambians from Northwestern Province reluctant to publicly criticise Hichilema's leadership failures?
By Sishuwa Sishuwa
There must be honour and principles in life.
I will tell you a story…
A photographer made his money and consequently earned a living by taking pictures no matter how gruesome they were. His pictures were much sought after and always got to the front page of the main newspapers. Even when someone prominent was taking a bath, he could find a way to capture their unshaven bits. That photograph put bread on his table.
One day, his very close friend, and a very prominent figure, got involved in a road traffic accident. As his house was along the highway, he saw the accident from the window of his house. The photographer grabbed his camera and rushed to the accident spot. On arrival, he positioned himself well and took the ghastly pictures from different angles.
The ambulance arrived about 30 minutes after the photographer had reached the scene. He took the photographs of the ambulance and the paramedics rushing to help. He did not lend a hand. His friend was taken to the hospital.
After his pictures were published by major newspapers the following day, he was very pleased. Later, he went to the hospital to check on his friend. On arrival, the doctor said “Oh, you are the photographer who arrived first at the scene and got these pictures?”, to which the photographer responded in the affirmative.
“Are you the one who called for the ambulance?”, the doctor asked.
“No”, l am not. The ambulance services came on their own. Someone else must have alerted them. I got there at 12: 02 and the ambulance arrived at 12:32”, the photographer responded.
The doctor said “I am sorry sir. Your friend died on arrival at the hospital. The ambulance was nearby but we only received a distress call from a good Samaritan who notified the ambulance services about the accident 26 minutes after you got to the scene. It seems we got there late. As opposed to focusing on taking ghastly pictures, you should have been more principled. Had you phoned the ambulance before or immediately after you arrived on the scene , we may have managed to save your friend's life.”
The photographer said, “principles do not not put bread on my table. I admit, those pictures are ghastly, but I am going to be paid for those photographs and l will eat…to take more.”
The bitter truth – and the moral of the story – is that many people are primarily driven by the primitive and savage animal instinct to stave off death. And yet ultimately, they die anyway, A small group of human beings have evolved beyond this animal level: they lead, because they are not captive to base animal instincts; they have tamed them. Such human beings have a higher consciousness, and conscience. I strive to be one of them.
I have tried under very difficult circumstances to create a moral code to live by. I have seen my friends and colleagues in civil society and academia abandon governance values that I thought we held dear before the 2021 election. Today, these friends and colleagues are either quiet when the same wrongs we condemned under Edgar Lungu happen or they are now on the other side, defending actions that we condemned when done by the previous administration. Others have fashioned a new role for themselves: delegitimising Hichilema's critics by attacking their person rather than showing weakness in what the critic has said.
Some of them have even turned their backs on me, treating me like a pariah. My crime? Holding the current president to account as I did to his predecessors. I have managed to hang on, but it has not been easy. As a matter of fact, I have, at times, felt alone. In January 2024, government agents, relying on details on my national registration card, went to my village in Senanga district to investigate my ethnic roots. The 6-member team told my rural folks that they have been sent by the authorities in Lusaka to ascertain whether I was an ethnic Bemba masquerading as a Lozi because ‘some people in government’ could not understand how an ethnic Lozi could criticise the leadership of a man who comes from ‘our region’ – the first president from there.
I was not surprised when my village folks informed me about this disturbing development because I had several months earlier been tipped by prominent civil rights campaigner Brebner Changala that several senior UPND figures had complained on a WhatsApp group on which he is a member about my criticism of Hichilema’s administration and called for a probe into my ethnic roots. It is true that I am considered a traitor or sellout by those who think in narrow ethnic terms, including intellectual and professional elites from my region (lawyers, academics, economists, journalists, activists, etc.) who were critical of the governance pitfalls of former president Lungu but have maintained a deafening and incriminating silence on Hichilema’s transgressions. I can only imagine what these same people would have said if Bill 7 was proposed by Edgar Lungu or if Lungu disregarded a judgement of the Constitutional Court stating that Bill 7 is illegal because it was a product of an unconstitutional process.
I worked with Tonga, Lozi and northwestern colleagues at the height of the PF misgovernance. Their academic criticism of the regime was top notch. We were all doing it together and so happily because it was the right thing to do. I am now discovering that many of these were just ethnic nationalists or staunch supporters of Hichilema who have now been accorded various privileges or are simply happy that "one of our own" is in power. Their mouths are now shut even to the very concerns they opposed under the PF. Under the UPND, it is harder to find a Tonga or Lozi who stands up to Hichilema’s leadership failures.
One or two may be disgruntled here and there, but many are fanatical supporters of the president, largely driven by ethnic-regional cleavages and loyalties. While those originating from my ethnic-region community had no issue with my criticism of Lungu’s rule, they now find fault in nearly any substantive criticism that I raise against Hichilema’s leadership. As well as weaponising intellectual and moral positions to advance personal and political considerations, members of this community treat me as a traitor whose criticism of Hichilema’s leadership actions risks undermining their cause for ethnic-regional supremacy.
Politics can reveal the truest character of people we had some respect for at a distance. I sometimes ask myself: what has happened to these people? How is it possible that something that was unacceptable under Lungu should be acceptable under Hichilema? How do these people live with themselves? Why is it that we seem to have different standards for Hichilema compared to those who came before him? How come we have made it seem like the responsibility of holding the government to account falls on those who hail from the region where the president does not come from? Some of my questions were answered yesterday when a member of Hichilema's Tonga ethnic group sent the message below to my inbox on X:
“Good morning Sishuwa, I love your objectivity. I enjoy reading your articles and what I love the most about your personality is you are not moved to answer any opposing negative comments with hostility or anger but handle them with such Intelligence and maturity. May God and ancestors keep you healthy, strong and give you long life. We need more minds like yours. Sorry I fear to answer this way on your tweets because I fear my tribe and can't afford a lawyer. Have yourself an awesome Sunday! 🙏😎 receive your flowers Sir 💐”
Although heartwarming on the surface, this message is extremely sad. That someone is afraid of expressing themselves on the governance affairs of their homeland because of their ethnic identity shows how deeply polarised we have become as a country. The message also sheds light on why so few Tongas, Lozis and Northwesterners publicly criticise Hichilema’s leadership even in instances where they may have criticised similar actions under previous presidents. Some are not ethnic-regional nationalists who support the current administration as “our own baby” even when it does wrong things. To the contrary, they are Zambian nationalists who have critical views of the current administration but fear that giving such views public expression would attract serious backlash and social isolation from fellow Zambians from this region who expect them to support Hichilema and the ruling party on account of their ethnic-regional origins. As a result, they resort to self-censorship. The writer is clearly one of such people.
Others from Southern, Western, and Northwestern provinces – collectively known as the Zambezi region since the river Zambezi passes through them – do not criticise Hichilema’s leadership because they are either eating, have relatives in the echelons of power, or believe that criticising him amounts to arming the opposition. I am sure there are several other reasons, but the message provide insight into the reluctance of our fellow citizens from the Zambezi region to publicly criticise Hichilema.
In addition to denying the president the benefit of public feedback on his performance, the danger of this narrow minded or general collective regional thinking is that ethnic groups from other regions may in future find it difficult to vote for Hichilema or support a presidential candidate from the Zambezi region because of this herd mentality being shown by his supporters as well as the reluctance by those of us who hail from the same region to call out Hichilema’s governance excesses.
As an individual from the Zambezi region, who spoke out against Lungu's presidency that was unduly dominated by Bembas and Easterners and marginalised Tongas and other ethnic groups from the Zambezi region, I have come to terms with the fact that in life, we live with the choices we make. Today, many Zambians have been reduced to choosing between eating well and sleeping well. As I did under Lungu and his predecessors, I have chosen sleeping well — and I am at peace. If my colleagues from the Zambezi region join in calling out the wrongs of Hichilema, he will no longer have the ethnic card of reducing all criticism of his leadership to ethnic hatred.
I do think that the fear of death is the ultimate weapon those who oppress us use against us. Securing victory over this fear is essential and necessary for true freedom. Without this degree of freedom, we have a price tag over our head. Freedom is the most expensive commodity on Earth, secured ultimately by our very lives. It is the loneliest state and yet the most truly alive state of being.
