Alfred Ndhlovu says President Edgar Lungu and should have a big heart capable of withstanding pressure of criticism from artistes.

Ndhlovu has pleaded with President Lungu and his administration not to block Pilato’s hit song “Koswe Mumpoto” from playing on on Radio Stations, even if they find the piece of art offensive.
Pilato is not new to controversy. In 2012, he teamed-up with Petersen Mundia to release the “Bufi”hit song which was a direct attack on late President Micheal Sata for failing to honour his 2012 campaign promises. Pilato did not end there, as he released another  song “A Lungu anabwela” a remix of the late Pigen Kazembe’s classic 70s song.
The “a Lungu anambwela” song  did not sit too well with the PF establishment as they locked-him up and slapped him with defamation of the President offense, but his case was discontinued by the Director of Public Prosecution(DPP).
Early this week, Pilato released “Koswe Mumpoto” song that is criticising the PF regime for allegedly looting the public treasury.
The PF ordered Pilato to retract the song, but he has defiantly refused to do so.
When reached for a comment, Ndhlovu, the former Communication and Transport deputy Minister said the song should not be blocked but allowed to play on radio stations  because it is a piece of art.
He said if the PF wants the song to be put off, then they must pay the satirist money he used to produce the piece of art.
Flanked by his grand children, Ndhlovu said artistes are there to inform, educate and entertain, saying sometimes art work can be provocative but it is not a good reason why artistes should be attacked and caged by aggrieved parties.

“Pilato is an artiste and artistes reflect what is happening in society. There job is to compose songs relating to what they see. Now some of those songs are very good, educative and offensive. Now when the song is offensive, you can’t stop an artiste from playing it. You can rather take them to court so that they are either convicted or fined for having composed an offensive song. If you check the music CD libraries, you are going to find that there were artistes like late Paul Ngozi who were singing about what was happening in society, therefore you can’t stop Pilato from selling his CDs because he used money to produce the song. If there are people who have found Pilato’s song offensive, they should pay him back the money he used to produce the song so that they silence him in that manner,” he said, ” Let the boy(Pilato) sell his music so that he makes a little bit of money because the economy is biting. If anything, those who are offended can tell ZNBC not to play the song but there are many radio station out there. Let the  song play on the  radio stations and newspapers should review the song  so that people buy it, ” he emphasised.
According to Ndhlovu, there is nothing offensive about the song, as the singer appeared to be joking chimbuya(cousinship) with the Easterners who are known to eat mice.
“Edgar(President Lungu) is expected to be criticised in different ways.It is up to him whether he can stand the pressure of criticism from artistes. It is not only in Zambia that artistes have criticised leaders, but throughout the world artistes have portrayed certain events and criticised them. Therefore, there must always be an amicable way of resolving the issue. For me, I don’t find the song offensive because from long time, bembas have said imwe mukudya makoswe(you eat rats) and that is correct. Koswe is not the only rodent, we Ngonis eat. There are many rodents that we eat, including mambeba and tondo. So Bembas will not stop talking about them, just as we(easterners) don’t stop talking about Bembas eating monkeys and baboons. So if people are joking chimbuya, there is no need for repressals,” Ndhlovu said.