‘IS THIS REALLY TREASON OR REVENGE?’ A SOURCE CLOSE TO STATE HOUSE SHARES
‘IS THIS REALLY TREASON OR REVENGE?’ A SOURCE CLOSE TO STATE HOUSE SHARES ….
By Linda Banks
So let’s get this straight: Brian Mundubile was cleared to run for president by the very security services that allegedly believed he had been a militia leader for years. How convenient.
What kind of “militia commander” keeps his wife and children living at the very property where dangerous weapons are supposedly being stockpiled? Were the wife and children militia members too, or were they simply expected to sleep peacefully next to an alleged arsenal?
And what sane person deliberately turns his own family home into a supposed military base and then leaves his wife and children in the line of fire?
The story raises more questions than it answers. And frankly, the contradictions are becoming harder to explain away.
A close source linked to State House has given an exclusive interview to be aired on my YouTube channel, offering what they claim is an inside account of the thinking behind the recent arrests of opposition figures Makebi Zulu and Brian Mundubile.
The source alleges that President Hakainde Hichilema does not simply see Makebi Zulu and Brian Mundubile as opposition politicians. Rather, the source claims that when the President looks at the two men, he sees the unrelenting spirit of the former President, Edgar Lungu ; particularly in the events surrounding Lungu’s death, the dispute over his remains and the eventual burial. The source further noted that “The boss is a highly superstitious man”.
The source’s striking characterisation is that “this has nothing to do with treason; it is revenge.”
That is a serious allegation, and one that cannot simply be treated as fact without evidence. But it raises questions that deserve answers, particularly when viewed against the extraordinary sequence of events that has unfolded around the opposition in recent weeks.
According to the source, President Hichilema felt personally humiliated by the manner in which Makebi Zulu and members of the Lungu family handled matters surrounding the former President’s remains. Zulu had been deeply involved in the dispute surrounding Lungu’s burial, including the family’s position over where the former President should be laid to rest.
The source alleges that this perceived humiliation has influenced the way the authorities have subsequently dealt with Zulu.
But there is another part of this story that deserves particularly close scrutiny.
THE “YEARS OF SURVEILLANCE” QUESTION
Police have reportedly indicated that some of the individuals now implicated had been under surveillance and monitoring for several years.
That immediately raises a fundamental investigative question: Why was Mundubile cleared to run for president by security services if the same government security services were secretly investigating him? What exactly were the authorities monitoring ,and when did the alleged conspiracy actually begin?
During much of the period in which Makebi Zulu was allegedly being monitored, he was in South Africa dealing with the extraordinary impasse surrounding former President Edgar Lungu’s remains and burial. He was acting in connection with the Lungu family and was at the centre of a highly publicised dispute between the family and the Zambian government.
So, if the authorities genuinely had years of intelligence on Makebi Zulu, what was that intelligence about? Was he being monitored as an individual? Was the alleged monitoring related to his legal and political activities? Or are we being asked to believe that authorities had been monitoring a political partnership between Makebi Zulu and Brian Mundubile for years?
Because that is where the chronology becomes extremely important. Mundubile and Zulu did not operate as a political duo for several years. Their formal political association in this particular context came much later, reportedly around 60 days before the election.
Therefore, if police say they had been monitoring the duo for years, the public is entitled to ask: How could authorities have been monitoring a partnership that did not yet exist? If the answer is that they were monitoring them separately, then that distinction should be made clear.
When did their alleged conspiracy begin? What meeting marked the beginning? What communication brought them together? What specific act transformed political association into an alleged treasonous conspiracy?
Those are not trivial questions. They go to the heart of the case.
THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE QUESTION
The source further claims that Brian Mundubile was, in effect, collateral damage in what was primarily an operation directed at Makebi Zulu and the wider political network surrounding Edgar Lungu.
According to this account, Mundubile was not arrested at the scene because the operation did not initially go according to plan. The source alleges that the failure to arrest him at the scene was subsequently corrected through a later arrest.
If that account is wrong, the authorities should be able to explain precisely what happened. Why was Mundubile not arrested during the initial operation? Was he regarded as a suspect at that point? If so, why was he allowed to leave? If investigators already possessed years of intelligence implicating him, why was his arrest not made at the scene? And if he was not initially regarded as a suspect, what new evidence emerged afterwards that transformed him into a treason suspect?
These questions matter because a serious national-security operation should ordinarily have a clear chain of intelligence, planning and execution. If that chain is missing, then the public is entitled to question whether the operation was properly coordinated.
THEN CAME THE OPERATION AT MUNDUBILE’S HOUSE
This is where the government’s own changing account becomes impossible to ignore.
The incident at the property associated with Brian Mundubile is now central to the wider treason narrative. Yet before the authorities acknowledged what had happened, there was a period in which government officials publicly rejected reports that such an operation had taken place.
There were denials that there had been a military operation at Mundubile’s residence. There were also denials surrounding reports that former Cabinet minister Hon. Mutotwe Kafwaya had been shot or was being held in military custody. Three Permanent Secretaries were drawn into the controversy, with senior government officials rejecting reports of a shooting and disputing claims concerning Kafwaya’s whereabouts.
Then the story changed, the authorities subsequently acknowledged that a joint security operation had taken place at the property. Police later said officers had encountered gunfire and returned fire. A man was fatally wounded and was subsequently identified as Kafwaya. Eleven people were arrested and the government began presenting the incident as part of a wider national-security investigation.
That progression raises a question that should concern every serious investigator: Why did the government’s initial account differ so dramatically from what it later confirmed? If there had been no operation, why was an operation subsequently acknowledged? If Kafwaya was not in custody, where was he? If there had been no shooting, how did a former Cabinet minister come to be fatally shot during a security operation at the property? And if senior officials were simply acting on incomplete information, who failed to brief them?
These are not questions of political allegiance. They are questions of institutional accountability. Because the distinction between “there was no such operation” and “there was an intelligence-led joint security operation in which a man was killed” is enormous. One cannot simply move from one version to the other without explaining what happened in between.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED INSIDE THAT HOUSE?
The government’s account is that security forces were responding to an armed threat and that officers exchanged fire with people at the property. But that account has been disputed.
Mundubile has rejected the suggestion that the property was the headquarters of a militia and has disputed the circumstances surrounding Kafwaya’s death. That leaves a matter that should be settled not by competing political statements but by forensic evidence.
Where are the ballistic findings? Where are the bullet casings? What weapons were recovered? Who owned those weapons? Which weapon fired the fatal shot? Where was Kafwaya standing when he was shot? Where were the security officers positioned? How many rounds were fired by the security forces? How many were fired from inside the property? Was there CCTV footage? Were mobile phones seized and examined? Were photographs taken before the scene was disturbed? Was an independent forensic team permitted to examine the scene? Was the fatal projectile recovered and subjected to ballistic comparison?
And perhaps most importantly: Was Kafwaya shot during an exchange of fire, as the authorities contend, or was he shot inside the property under circumstances that require a completely different investigation?
That is not something a government spokesperson can settle. A post-mortem, ballistic evidence, scene reconstruction, witness testimony and a properly preserved chain of custody can.
THE KAFWAYA PARADOX
Then comes one of the most uncomfortable questions in this entire story.
Hon. Mutotwe Kafwaya was a former Cabinet minister. He was killed during the security operation at the Mundubile-linked property. Yet the same government whose security operation resulted in his death subsequently offered his family the funeral and burial honours applicable to a former Cabinet minister. The family declined the offer and chose a private funeral.
That creates a striking contradiction that deserves an explanation. If the government regarded Kafwaya as part of an armed militia or an active national-security threat, why was it simultaneously prepared to accord him the official honours of a former Cabinet minister? Conversely, if the government recognised him primarily as a former Cabinet minister whose death occurred during a security operation, what exactly is the evidentiary basis for portraying those who were with him as part of a militia?
The funeral offer does not prove Kafwaya’s innocence, nor does it invalidate the government’s allegations. But it raises an important question about the State’s own characterisation of the deceased. The public deserves to understand how those two positions fit together.
WHAT HAPPENED TO KAFWAYA AFTER THE SHOOTING?
There are further questions surrounding what happened after Kafwaya was killed.
His family has raised concerns about the condition in which his body was reportedly found at the mortuary, including allegations that he was without his clothes and that only his wristwatch had been recovered. If those allegations are accurate, they demand answers.
Who took custody of the body? Who transported it? Where was it taken immediately after the shooting? Who documented his belongings? Were his clothes recovered? Were his shoes recovered? Was a complete inventory made? Was a post-mortem conducted? Who conducted it? Were photographs taken before the body was moved? Has the family received the complete forensic documentation?
Again, these are not partisan questions. They are basic questions about the treatment of a deceased person and the integrity of evidence following a fatal security operation.
THE “MILITIA” QUESTION
The government’s subsequent description of the people at the property as part of a militia raises another fundamental issue.
What precisely is the alleged militia? Who created it? Who commanded it? Who recruited its members? Where were they trained? Who financed it? What was its objective? What weapons did it possess? Where are those weapons now? What communications establish its existence? And what evidence directly connects Brian Mundubile and Makebi Zulu to it?
The distinction is important. Finding weapons or armed individuals at a property may establish one set of facts. It does not automatically establish the existence of a coordinated militia. Establishing a militia does not automatically establish a conspiracy to overthrow a government. And establishing a political conspiracy does not, without the necessary evidence, automatically establish treason.
Each link has to be proved.
WHY WAS MUNDUBILE NOT ARRESTED AT THE SCENE?
There is another apparent inconsistency that requires an answer.
If Brian Mundubile was allegedly at the centre of a national security operation and investigators believed he posed such a serious threat, why was he not arrested during the operation at his property? Why were other people detained while he was not? Why was he subsequently pursued and arrested? If authorities already had years of intelligence on him, why was he not detained when the alleged evidence was supposedly being acted upon? And if he was not initially a suspect, what evidence emerged later?
The chronology matters. Because the government’s case now appears to connect the Mundubile house incident, the alleged militia, the opposition leadership and the subsequent treason charges. If those events are connected, the State should be able to demonstrate exactly how.
THE EVIDENCE QUESTION
Ultimately, this case should not be decided by political rhetoric. Not by UPND rhetoric. Not by opposition rhetoric. Not by social-media arguments. Not by praise singers. And not simply by statements from State House.
Evidence.
If this is genuinely a treason case, the State should be able to demonstrate the chain: surveillance → intelligence → alleged conspiracy → alleged actors → alleged preparations → alleged objective → overt act.
Where is that chain? What exactly were Mundubile and Zulu allegedly planning? Who were they allegedly planning to overthrow? What constitutional order were they allegedly attempting to overthrow? What weapons were allegedly under their command? How many people were allegedly recruited? What communications exist? What financial trail exists? What operational plans exist? What specific act constitutes treason? And how does the Mundubile house incident fit into that chain?
THE TIMING PROBLEM
There is another question that investigators cannot simply dismiss.
If police had been monitoring the individuals for years, why did the alleged conspiracy only crystallise around the election period? If Mundubile and Zulu’s political partnership was formed only relatively shortly before the election, what exactly was the conspiracy that existed before they became politically aligned? If Makebi Zulu was spending significant time in South Africa dealing with the Lungu burial dispute, what activities were allegedly being monitored? And if the authorities had evidence of a national-security threat for years, why did the public first encounter the full force of this narrative after the election?
Those questions do not prove that the allegations are false. But they demand a coherent explanation.
AND THEN THERE IS PATRICIA SCOTLAND
Finally, there is another question that will undoubtedly generate considerable discussion.
Will Patricia Scotland become involved in this latest political storm and, as some are already asking, come to the rescue of the “boys” ,as critics claim she previously did when Hakainde Hichilema was facing political difficulties?
That question should itself be examined carefully rather than reduced to political gossip. What role, if any, would Patricia Scotland have? What legal or diplomatic mechanism would permit such involvement? And would any intervention be about the rule of law and due process, or would it inevitably be interpreted through Zambia’s increasingly polarised political landscape?
THE QUESTION ZAMBIANS SHOULD BE ASKING
There is a danger in allowing the word “treason” to do the work that evidence is supposed to do.
If the State has compelling evidence, produce it. If the intelligence exists, explain the chronology. If there was a militia, identify its structure. If weapons were recovered, subject them to transparent forensic examination. If Mundubile and Zulu were monitored for years, explain exactly what was monitored and when. If the alleged conspiracy existed before their political partnership, explain how investigators reached that conclusion. If the Mundubile operation was a legitimate national-security operation, explain why the government’s initial public account appeared to deny its existence and why the account subsequently changed.
Explain who authorised the operation. Explain who briefed the Permanent Secretaries. Explain why the public was initially given conflicting information about Kafwaya’s whereabouts. Explain how he died. And explain why a man whom the government now places within a wider militia narrative was subsequently offered official funeral honours as a former Cabinet minister.
And if this case has absolutely nothing to do with Edgar Lungu, the events surrounding his death and burial, or the political battles that followed his death, then that too should be easy to demonstrate.
Because the timing, personalities and history inevitably raise a difficult question: Is Zambia witnessing a genuine national
security investigation , or are the unresolved political battles of the Lungu era now being fought through the criminal justice system?
That is the question the authorities must answer, and if the answer is treason, then Zambians deserve to see the evidence that makes it treason.
Not insinuation, not political theatre, not propaganda but Evidence.