Nkombo: Why Do Police Have Time To Raid Villages But Not Clean Up Criminality At Bus Stations?

Mazabuka Central MP Gary Nkombo has questioned why Lusaka police have the time and resources to raid a small village in Shibuyunji District, but cannot address genuine hubs of criminal activity like Lusaka’s Intercity Bus Terminus and Kamugodi near Soweto Market. 

It follows a raid by police on Mpolobe village, where officers from Lusaka searched a home belonging to the cousin of UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema. Police claimed that they had reports of weapons being hidden in the village but their search turned up nothing. 

The police raid was later defended in parliament by Home Affairs Minister Stephen Kampyongo. Mr Kampyongo said that the police’s actions were justified and that there was reasonable grounds to suspect weapons were being hidden in the village. 

Speaking during a parliamentary questions and answer section, Mr Nkombo asked why it was that police in the capital had time to turn small villages upside down in search of guns but could not put a stop to genuine criminality at Intercity and Kamugodi.

Mr Nkombo strongly implied that the raid was politically motivated, citing several other instances in which Zambian police had appeared to act on a partisan basis. 

““I will cite a few examples on why people might think that this was a targeted operation. The Deputy Secretary-General of the PF madam Mumbi Phiri in the period prior to the arrest of Mr Hichilema on a vexatious and fictitious charge of treason is quoted as having said that they will smoke him out like a rat. And a day later, police converged at his house, broke his house, took him like a common criminal, and eventually transported him from prison back and forth in a dog kennel,” he said.

“There was gassing in this country and a Mr Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba indicated to the country that he knew the people behind the gassing. The police have not arrested anyone even in the volunteering of that information. When the market was gutted, the Vice President Her Honour Mrs Wina seemed to know who those people were”, he added.