By Mark Simuuwe | It is naive and malicious for someone like former President Edgar Lungu to claim that President Hakainde Hichilema has initiated amendments to the constitution secretly.

It is cheap politics for ECL to make such claims on unofficial matters.

Edgar Lungu should not be so desperate to seek attention and say things that have no basis and no substance to the national agenda as a way of winning political mileage .

A man who has ruled the country before must speak to official information from government not hearsay or unofficial information .

The office of the President uses official channels to communicate to the public and not hearsay. Anything not yet published is never official.

We expect a high level of correspondence from a former head of state not baselesss social media inuendos .

The 2016 Constitution which ECL wants to praise himself for was started by President Micheal Sata and was completed at consultation level before ECL became President. ECL simply grabbed the document to have it presented to parliament and enacted. ECL never allowed for a good law making process during his time . He endeavoured to make sure bad laws were made .

The problem is that Mr Lungu thinks President HICHILEMA reasons the same way the former did on Bill 10 and the Public Order Act, in which he aimed at destroying the country’s democracy by raping the constitution of Zambia amendment no.2 of 2016.

If at all there will be any need to amend the constitution, there will be an official announcement and the process shall be guided by the principles of the rule of law and inclusivity and not the old PF lopsided approach to constitutional amendments.

Citizens may recall that the said Bill 10 process under ECL was marred with corruption of some members of parliament from the opposition and some civil society organizations that went round the country to try to force and deceive citizens to accept a dirty document, by the Patriotic Front(PF) government in order to stop political opponents from contesting elections.

Fortunately, citizens and well-meaning civil society, rose up to the occasion and stopped ECL’s impunity.

ECL’s government influenced and ensured that bad laws were made. Laws which were meant for the opposition like the Cyber Security and Cyber Crime Act, which are now haunting Edgar Lungu. Many of you may have heard Edgar Lungu complaining that some people are being arrested for expressing hate on social media today. This is the Cyber Law that ECL initiated and praised until it was enacted by his MPs.

As many citizens may recall, alongside the 2016 amendments, ECL and his administration earlier attempted to amend the Bill of Rights without inclusivity and this sparked a serious national debate which saw some civil society activists arrested. ECL further pursued to destroy the media space by attempting to influence a process of PF aligned civil society organizations at his time to commence a process of regulating journalists, which process collapsed when the UPND came into power.

Citizens have not forgotten how ECL and his MPs maliciously spearheaded a movement to destroy our democracy as such, it is not only malicious and deceptive for him to publish hearsay, but a sign of being irresponsible by someone who is supposed to be a former head of state .

Citizens must overlook this level of desperation.