Jack Zimba

    BRITISH journalist and novelist John Lanchester, in an article Ballet With the Ball: A Love Story , romanticised soccer thus: "At some deep level the reason soccer snags us is that good soccer is beautiful, and it's difficult, and the two are related. A team kicking the ball to each other, passing into empty space that is suddenly filled by a player who wasn't there two seconds ago and who is running at full pelt and who without looking or breaking stride knocks the ball back to a third player who he surely can't have seen, who, also at full pelt and without breaking stride, then passes the ball, at say 60 miles an hour, to land on the head of a fourth player who has run 75 yards to get there and who, again all in stride, jumps and heads the ball with, once you realise how hard this is, unbelievable power and accuracy toward a corner of the goal just exactly where the goalkeeper, executing some complex physics entirely without conscious thought and through mus...

TWO years ago today, the world was looking like a great place to live with bright prospects. No one would have imagined that a virus would suddenly turn the whole globe topsy-turvy.     Two years later, Covid has become the greatest evil of our time, changing every sphere of our lives and how we live. We have become strangers in our own world, walking about with hidden smiles and muffled voices. But even in this hugless world, we must keep our hopes alive that 2022 will be different; and it can only be different when it resembles the kind of world we had before December 2019. Yes, we had bombs falling on Syria and the murderous IS running over villages and towns, but all that now pales in the wake of COVID-19. We must all hope for an end to this.     Although I shudder to imagine that whoever or whatever is behind the pandemic would want to walk us through the entire Greek alphabet – alpha to omega – 24 characters in all. And to think that we have only...

WHAT can one do in 100 days? Well a lot can happen in 100 days. If you are Patson Daka, you can score a couple of hat-tricks for your club. Or if you are a lucky dog, you can be caught pants down with a stash of stolen money and still walk away smiling. But if you are President Hakainde Hichilema, you could simply jump on a plane, fly halfway round the globe only to dine with former college mates who now hold jobs as big as yours, and have a photo op with the future king of England (if it ever happens). Of course as you might already have noticed, I’m being overly simplistic and a bit sarcastic, which is a result of envy for the President’s job, I must confess. Which I beg to be forgiven for. But there is so much buzz about President HH’s first 100 days in office, which of course is a milestone – although not backed by any political scientific evidence as to its significance. Suffice to say there is a history to the first 100 days in office mark, and it is steeped in American p...

PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema must utterly have avoided the pig. Ah! Of course I’m not referring to the dainty bacon and spare ribs, our Adventist brother would never touch those, lest he commits religious sacrilege. I’m referring here to the political P.I.G – the Party and Its Government; the old political system of the one party state era under UNIP and Kenneth Kaunda back in the 1990s and beyond. Of course that is too far for millennials to relate. I’m talking about the governance system that drew no clear distinction between the ruling party and Government, something that became prominent under the PF in the past 10 years. In many instances, district commissioners’ offices became an extension of the party secretariat where one had to prove allegiance to the ruling party in order to get help. Even foreign missions became an extension of the ruling party, run by members who could freely run party errands using diplomatic passports. In fact the pig was well fattened in the ...

CLEARLY the biggest opposition President HH faces at the moment is not the PF, which is still ship-wrecked at sea; it’s definitely not the DP with all its pettiness and confusion. In fact, we cannot even begin to talk about all the other zero-rated political parties (sadly). The biggest opposition that Mr Hichilema faces, and will face in the months to come is the clique of individuals who have everything to lose if he succeeds, particularly in his fight against corruption. Yes, with all the rot (at least from what we have seen so far) that went on, they want us to simply look away and move on while singing Que sera, sera . NO. There was bad precedent set and we cannot simply build on that and expect to have a proper functioning government or society. But what we see now is the rise of individuals whose aim is to frustrate the fight against corruption – to kill it in its infancy. One of the best tactics the clique will employ is to play victim in order to win public sympat...

AS FAR as the fight against corruption is concerned, about three weeks ago President HH had promised a bombshell – to reveal how those in the previous administration robbed the nation in broad daylight and emptied its coffers. He is yet to drop the bombshell. And when he addressed Zambians living in the United Kingdom last week, he assured his audience that “the corruption and asset recovery fight is in full gear. Soon results will begin to show.” But what we have seen the past week, instead, is the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) firing blanks; seemingly groping in the dark to glean for evidence of crime. Clearly there is a mismatch between the huge pronouncements the President is making publicly about the fight against corruption and what appears to be happening on the ground. Perhaps someone must remind the President that one cannot drive a car in full gear when one wheel is coming off. Yes, one would have thought that once the ACC knocks on your door, they would alread...

  AND so after punching holes in the PF boat, leading to its epic shipwreck in the last general election, Chishimba Kambwili had one last despicable act – to desecrate the grave of the man who built it – Michael Sata. Of course I’m referring to the incident during Sata’s memorial last week, when Kambwili’s supporters thought they could turn the event into a rowdy political rally to flaunt him as the party’s next leader. It seems the leopard will claw at anything to get up the tree, but he must remember that ultimately it is the people of Zambia who decide the destinies of political parties and their leaders, and that based on their conduct and what they have to offer.      And let us just call it as it is, Kambwili was the one significant minus to the PF’s and Edgar Lungu’s campaign for the August 12 elections with his rantings that usually bordered on tribalism. But why those within the party saw the opposite is both confusing and shocking. At a time when ...

THIS is what the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and its sister agencies plainly told Faith Musonda, the lady behind the K65 million loot, last week, “You are guilty as hell, but you are free to go.” For looting millions of public funds, Faith got nothing more than a slap on the wrist, while many citizens now feel like they got a slap on the face. Such travesty of justice went with the old regime, so we were meant to believe, but no! Faith must be such a super lucky girl for having such an easy escape with the law! What we thought were hours of hard, nose-bruising interrogation by investigators was actually deal brokering to let Faith go scot free. The ACC had to dig up a law that many citizens didn’t know even existed, to create an escape door for Faith. According to Section 80 (3) of the Anti-Corruption Act number 3 of 2012, the Anti-Corruption Commission “may tender an undertaking, in writing, not to institute criminal proceedings against a person who (a) has given a full an...

ONE of the greatest, and definitely the most sobering, lessons we must all learn from the August 12 elections is that God does not take part in our small, usually narrow-minded, political games. But again, politicians never learn, as witnessed on the Day of Prayer on Monday, where the former President Edgar Lungu, who is in fact the architect of the day, decided to ignore the invitation to the main gathering and instead secretly went to a small gathering in the corner of town to observe the day. ECL is repeating the same conduct for which his successor Hakainde Hichilema was labeled a Satanist not too long ago. He and his followers now stand aloof because their God is no-longer in power. Yes, the former president’s appearing at a small gathering in the corner of town was nothing but a political move to save face, although those in the PF will want to justify it. This only goes to show that the architect of this day did not truly believe in its purpose in the first place, but ...