By Frank Mutubila I have never asked the UPND for a job. If anything, I chose to resign from the Zambia Daily Mail Board because integrity has always mattered more to me than any position. After fifty six years of serving Zambia, I never imagined that my greatest burden would not be criticism, but hatred […]

By Frank Mutubila

I have never asked the UPND for a job. If anything, I chose to resign from the Zambia Daily Mail Board because integrity has always mattered more to me than any position. After fifty six years of serving Zambia, I never imagined that my greatest burden would not be criticism, but hatred for simply thinking independently.

What grieves me is not the insults. Words pass. What grieves me is watching our nation lose the grace to disagree. Zambia was never meant to be a country where conformity is rewarded and independent voices are condemned. Democracy does not ask us to think alike. It asks us to respect one another despite our differences.

I lived and worked through the one party era. Ironically, I often found greater civility and respect as a media practitioner than I witness today. One question remains. Could a journalist like Charles Mando freely conduct the fearless interviews that once defined public broadcasting. If that question unsettles us, perhaps it is because we already know the answer.

I refuse to hate. I refuse to repay bitterness with bitterness. My prayer is that God softens hearts where anger has taken root, restores wisdom where pride has taken control, and reminds us that no political victory is worth the loss of our national soul.

I interviewed President Hakainde Hichilema and many UPND leaders throughout their years in opposition, under both the MMD and PF governments. I have openly stated that I voted for President Hichilema. Yet never once was I insulted, abused, or persecuted by MMD or PF sympathisers for doing my job or expressing my views.

Today, the situation is painfully different. I am insulted almost every time I write, even when my articles are about faith, hope, and God rather than politics. The hatred has become so deep that people have impersonated me using the name “A1” in an attempt to destroy my reputation. I reported these criminal acts to ZICTA, but little came of it.

Governments will come and go, but Zambia must remain bigger than politics. I leave my name in God’s hands and my record in the hands of history. My only prayer is that no Zambian should ever have to fear speaking their conscience in the country they love. A nation does not become strong when every voice sounds the same. It becomes strong when every voice is free to be heard.