THERE is no plan for Zambians if we don’t change and remove the PF government in 2021, says Father Richard Luonde.

The Socialist Party spokesperson said the ‘Promised Land’ would only come about if Zambians stand up and declared that they have had enough 2021. The Chingola resident lamented at the outlook of the once elegant mine residential areas owing to the neglect by the PF government and new mine owners.

“Zambia today should be a country of sighted people, people who have eyes to see and ears to hear. What we are experiencing today, we as Zambians have not experienced it before,” Fr Luonde said. “I am in the mine area, Buyantashi where most miners used to live and work as miners and appreciated by ZCCM but today if you come into this area you would think this is a place where the orphaned live, where people who have nowhere to go to live and if you look at the situation you would be able to see that Zambia is headed nowhere.”

He said it was so painful to see that the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), which Zambians rejected in 2011 because of people’s hardships, was now in the driving seat of the ruling party. Fr Luonde said Zambians were not foolish to remove MMD from government for the current crop of scheming PF leaders to surrender the party to the former governors.

“And if this Patriotic Front government is realistic and carrying on the vision of the late Michael Sata, we cannot be living in this…it’s so painful that while we fought the MMD and removed them from government and you look at the scope of those in leadership and those patronizing and showing themselves as PF, are all MMD,” he said. “Were Zambians foolish to remove MMD from government? Zambians were not foolish and after the demise of Michael Sata we allowed those who were not leaders to lead the PF and to ascend to the highest positions of governance…this is what we are experiencing today.”

Fr Luonde said in 2011, Zambians were fed up with the governance of the MMD and wanted fresh blood.

“People used to call themselves ‘die-hard’, people who used to say ‘Sata cannot rule this country over my dead body’; people who were saying ‘Michael Sata is mad’ are the people who have come back,” he noted. “And to a certain extent I am agreeing with their foolish sentiments because those who pretended to be with Michael Sata were not with him. They were simply ganging up to come and take over. This is sad because some of them could have known the condition and health of our late President and telling their friends that ‘don’t worry, time to steal will come, we shall bring you back’ and this is what they have done.”

Fr Luonde said today Zambia was in a state of confusion.

“Today we have a country which is in a state of confusion, a country which cannot lead people as Moses led the children of Israel from Egypt into the Promised Land. There is no plan for Zambians if we don’t change and remove this government. That Promised Land will only come about if Zambians in 2021 stand up and say ‘we have had enough’. We were only liberated for a few years from the MMD after the reign of Michael Sata and when he died we returned back to the MMD hence the suffering today,” he said. “All the promises including the manifesto of the PF that we supported then has been manipulated and coalesced with the MMD manifesto hence the suffering of our people in this country today. If Zambians realise and think we are going to continue with the same suffering in 2021 then this nation is doomed, doomed to die because all the people that are there, their ideology is the same…their ideology is to make Zambians suffer more, make Zambians lose hope, make Zambians die in numbers because what they want is to bring in foreigners to come and run this country as it is happening today.”

Fr Luonde said Sata had ideals and an ideology about socialism hence his manifesto and what he struggled for and his works begun to be seen by people.

“The sighted were able to see this but those who took over from him did not have a vision of Michael Sata but had to return to exploitation of the majority of Zambians,” he said

Fr Luonde said what Zambia needed was total change of leadership.

“Let’s have leaders who have not smelled, lived, enjoyed with those in leadership. Let’s have new people, they are there. I am appealing to the Zambians, begin to rethink. The chitenge materials from parties will not do us good, K20 given to us during campaigns is not good, the bags of mealie-meal given to us will not keep us forever,” said Fr Luonde.