Zambians not at ease despite swearing-in President — PLO Lumumba

Zambians not at ease despite swearing-in President — Lumumba RENOWNED Kenyan lawyer and Pan-Africanist Professor Patrick Lumumba, popularly known as PLO Lumumba, says Zambians are still not at ease despite the swearing-in of President Hakainde Hichilema on September 1. Lumumba says the country’s post-election disagreements demonstrate how Africa continues to export its problems instead of […]

Zambians not at ease despite swearing-in President — Lumumba

RENOWNED Kenyan lawyer and Pan-Africanist Professor Patrick Lumumba, popularly known as PLO Lumumba, says Zambians are still not at ease despite the swearing-in of President Hakainde Hichilema on September 1.

Lumumba says the country’s post-election disagreements demonstrate how Africa continues to export its problems instead of finding solutions to them.

“As I speak to you today, the Zambians are not at ease. They may have sworn their President on Tuesday of last week, but the opposition are now taking the matter, they say, to the United Nations,” he said.

Professor Lumumba says the inability of African countries to resolve electoral disputes internally is a sign of deeper weaknesses in the continent’s democratic systems.

“We’re exporting our problems. Africa cannot solve our problems. They have just been through an election and they do not agree as to who has won and who has lost,” he said.

He further observed that elections in Africa are often characterised by competing claims of victory, with losing sides reluctant to accept the outcome.

“In Africa, everybody wins the election. In Africa nobody loses an election. The Zambians are not at ease,” Lumumba said.

He also criticised what he described as Africa’s persistent inability to accurately count votes, arguing that the problem has become a major weakness in the continent’s electoral processes

“You know, I was telling a friend of mine that Africa has a problem with counting votes. In other parts of the world, they can have voters in 50 million, in hundreds of millions, but in Africa voters never get past 10 million.

“But for some reason, when we are called upon to count our votes, we never, can’t count the votes. This is an African disease. The inability to count the votes,” he said.

Lumumba says Africa must therefore rethink its approach to politics and electoral management if the continent is to strengthen democracy.

“And in my view, and in my submission, that inability and the inadequacy of Africa to count the votes is one of the problems why Africa must reorient and must reawaken in our politics,” he said.

-TV Yatu | Noel Iyombwa | September 10, 2026.