Elias Chipimo Jr: Zambia’s President in 2021?

                                                                                 

Elias Chipimo Jr. is undoubtedly one of Zambia’s brightest people. By the age of thirty, he had attained an advanced law degree from Oxford University on the Rhodes Trust scholarship and founded Corpus Globe, a highly successful legal firm offering corporate and commercial legal services to both local and multinational clients. But in 2010, despite a legal career that was at its peak and still rising, Chipimo left it all behind for a life in the lane of Zambian politics. Unsurprisingly, the question that many people asked was why?

In his book, Unequal to the Task; Awakening a New Generation of Leaders in Africa, Chipimo explained the sad occurrences of 2008 that were the seed of his decision to actively join politics. His parents, Elias Chipimo Sr, a former official in UNIP and MMD governments and Anne Chipimo were travelling to their hometown Mporokoso to cast their votes in the October, 30^th presidential by election when they were involved in a car accident. His mother tragically passed away on the spot but his father survived yet terribly injured. In the next hours, what followed were frantic efforts to save his father’s life, efforts that made Chipimo reflect deeply about the differences between the rich and the poor in Zambia. He asked himself how many families had the means to care for a critically injured parent, to provide access to healthcare that would mean the difference between life and death and as he and his family tried to navigate through the Zambian healthcare system to provide his father with the best care possible, Chipimo also realised that Zambia as a nation had grown accustomed to mediocrity and gradually accepted it as normal. It was then that he realised that something needed to change.

But it was two weeks later when he finally decided to actively get involved in the country’s politics. Rupiah Banda had been newly elected as Zambia’s Republican President amid claims of vote rigging. As he announced his new cabinet at State House, each name was met with celebration on the part of appointees. Following the proceedings keenly, Chipimo wondered why anyone would celebrate to receive an appointment in the government and run an already terribly battered economy. It defied logic and he knew then that he could no longer sit by the terraces and watch the governance of the country from afar.

Two years later, in 2010, the National Restoration Party was founded with Chipimo as President. Although many people agreed that Chipimo had promising leadership qualities, they doubted that he had the claws necessary to survive and win in the game of Zambian politics. Given the party’s poor performance in the 2011 presidential elections and low numbers of active members in the following years, Chipimo’s detractors felt they had been proven right. Narep was a party largely confined to infancy.

Fast forward to 2015, Chipimo announced that his party would not be contesting the 2016 Republican presidential elections. This was something that that some members of the electorate read as a form of Chipimo’s retirement from active politics, that somehow he had come to realise  that even though he had noble intentions of joining politics, good leadership qualities and a good following on social media, winning elections and getting to state house was a different and difficult feat.

But was Chipimo retiring so soon from active politics after only five years on the political scene?

Apparently not.

On this decision to not contest the presidential elections and other issues, I spoke to Elias Chipimo Jr.  at the Narep offices in Lusaka. As soon as I entered his office, he walked over to me, energetically with a youthful demeanour. We shook hands and took our sits. I asked my first question.

What made you decide to not contest the 2016 presidential elections?

“We made a strategic decision not to stand in the general election because we want to consolidate the work we have been doing on the ground by converting the work into tangible results by having several councillors and MPs in parliament. I will be standing as a Member of Parliament instead for Mporokoso constituency. We want our constituencies to be model constituencies to illustrate how a constituency should be run.”

What is your take on people’s perception that you practise tea room politics?

“It is normal and I understand for people to conclude that I practice tea room politics because they don’t get to see the work that I do on the ground, hence, that is part of the reason Narep has made a strategic choice not to stand in the presidential election.”

If Narep was in power now what would they do differently?

“It is amazing how much opportunity exists in the current state of the economy to completely restructure what has been a very badly arranged framework for our economy. There is constant talk about diversification, not depending on copper and building home grown capacity but nothing ever gets done. All these things can be easily done. It all starts with a vision of what you want to see and asking yourself, what can you do really well that the world needs. We can be the world’s largest exporter of organic honey. The world has a demand for honey and an even bigger demand for organic honey. So focusing on honey, Narep would in one stroke address the problem of the exchange rate, diversification and empowerment of communities in rural areas as they are the best areas for bee keeping. In the same way we have a Copperbelt, we will have a honeybelt.”

We have seen many people get to power with big ideas like yours but they never implement them, what could be the reason?

“It is because they never had a vision in the first place. Also, the moral foundation is so badly eroded and people are not held accountable. There is no effective challenge to the leadership.”

Corruption prevents many governments from implementing their plans, how will you keep it out of your government?

                                                             

“We will establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission where immunity can be granted to perpetrators of corruption in exchange for information on how the corruption was committed and all those involved, we can then get the corruption right at the source.”

Finally, do you see the National Restoration Party ever forming the government of the Republic of Zambia?

“Yes,” Chipimo says, gently nodding, “this is what I have been explaining to you. We aim to form the next government in 2021.”

ThE eCoNoMiC lIfEcYcLe Of An OrDiNaRy ZaMbIaN

It all starts from here, you see. 

For twelve years - more if you are that kind who repeated grades - you go to school.  There, you are told that you have to work hard so that you can one day make it to University. Never mind that you might actually just need to know what you learn in school, that maybe it is in these school years that you discover another form of gravity, if there ever was such a thing. They never tell you too that the country’s two prominent universities, Copperbelt and University of Zambia, built initially for two thousand or so students, are too over crowded to likely give you a fair chance. Woe betide you if you have no connections to help you find a place or if you are just plain unlucky.

 

You do as you as you are told. You work hard and make it to University.  You just need to have this thing called degree; your life depends on it, so you have been told and so you have come to believe. Never mind that people like Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg and Apple’s Steve Jobs built empires which have revolutionized our way of life after they had dropped out of University. You see, for all the knowledge you receive the years you’ve spent learning, the Zambian education system teaches you one thing; to one day be employed by someone else.  

 

At University, they begin to tell you a story that picks up from where the one at secondary school ended. While at school they told you to work hard to make it to University, at University they tell you to work hard so you can find a  job. ‘If you do well here, you will be managers in multinational organizations,’ Lecturers tell you as you sit goggle - eyed behind desks, pen in hand, ready to write down the notes the Lecturer writes on the board, plus every word that he speaks. This, you know by experience is what will help you pass the exams. Never mind reading widely even books that might have a flicker of connection to your course because maybe there could be something in them that could trigger a deeper understanding of your course. Never mind that. Besides, such reading was not something they encouraged you to do while in school. In fact, it was something your teachers considered a waste of time because the only books you needed to read were text books.

 

The four years or so you spend at University feel like a lifetime but on the day the Chancellor confers you with the degree and you raise your mortarboards up in a victorious celebration, you are convinced that this was not only the right thing to do but the only thing to do. You feel like this is the day your life begins. Soon (you think) you will be employed.

 

The first days after University go by smoothly. You are newly free from your studies and revelling in your new freedom while submitting applications for employment here and there. You are sure they will call you. After all, you have a degree. Plus isn’t this what you have been told all along? That you should go to school, do well, get into University and then find a job?

 

Days turn into months and months into years without a response on any of your applications. It slowly begins to dawn on you that you may not get employed. Frustration creeps in and you begin to spend your days unproductively, drinking beer, smoking weed or slouching on the sofa while moaning, ‘I have no money, jobs are hard to find,’ to anyone with enough time to listen. Sympathetic ones comfort you, ‘It’s just a matter of time, you will find a job, it took me ten years to find this job.’ Their words soothe you a little but you still feel the pinch of your empty pockets.

 

After sometime, you find a job. It’s a cause for celebration and people say, ‘See, we told you it would eventually happen.’ ‘Thank you,’ you say and count your lucky stars. When pay day comes, you feel like the richest person on earth. But by the time its mid month, reality begins to sink in. You discover that even with a salary, your broke days are not entirely behind you and you realise how expensive electricity is and how unaffordable the basic food has become. Even butter begins to feel like a luxury.  

 

However, for years you work diligently and efficiently and with the same cycle persisting of money running out by mid month after every payday. Each year you hope you will earn enough to live a life that resembles the one you imagined while at University. But with each year things seem to get worse. Your pay can hardly suffice because things keep getting more and more expensive.  The country imports almost every item you use for your daily sustenance and any negative fluctuation in the currency causes a further increase in prices of goods.

 

 Soon, you come to realise that it’s impossible to survive on your salary alone and you decide to start a business for extra income and turn a corner of your sitting room at home into your office. But the odds are not in your favour. In addition to the economic problems the country is facing, problems that have led you to seek extra income to survive, the country begins to experience eight hours of load shedding, sometimes even more. This, the government says is necessary due to the low water levels. They hint that if the country experiences good rainfall, load shedding will reduce but once the rainy season starts, they say it will take at least three rainy seasons to generate enough hydroelectricity.  You cringe at load shedding although you are yet to understand just how this affects you.

 

In time, you develop a full appreciation of what load shedding brings to your life. You are unable to conduct the business you thought could earn you extra income because there is a pitch black darkness that greets you every night when you get home. You think about buying a generator, inventor or a solar system but these, because of the exchange rate, have become more expensive for you to afford. This business is now something that you are unable to do. But you can’t afford to wait for the day when the Kariba dam fills up to supply you with adequate electricity. So you think of another business to do and since your first business failed and swallowed all your capital, you get a small loan to start the business. It isn’t long before you come to realise that whatever business you do, loadshedding and the weak kwacha negatively affect production and profitability. You make a loss and the business goes under. The consequences are dire. The financial institution you borrowed money from wants its money back otherwise they will get all the items you put up as collateral. So to repay the loan you get numerous salary advances from work and other small loans from Shylocks. Soon the actual money you take home from your pay reduces to zero because everything else goes to the people you owe.

 

Now, you have hit rock bottom and you begin to wonder just how you got to this place. Didn’t you do everything right? Go to school as you were told? Kept away from stealing and tried at business? As you reflect on all this you begin to wonder whether there was ever any chance of you making it in life. Somehow, you feel like the odds were stuck against you from the very beginning.  At this point, a feeling of doom looms over you.  Just how did you become a prisoner of the very things you thought would give you economic and financial freedom; school, a job and steady income?

 

This feeling however wears away once the human quest to survive begins to set in.

 And that willpower is a good thing.

The unfortunate thing is that if you were asked to do all this again, you will choose to do it all the same way. This time, just hoping for different results.