By Davis Mataka
ACCORDING to Greek mythology, In the early 12th centuary B.C. , the marauding legions of a conqueror determined to break down the impregnable walls of the city of Troy laid siege outside it’s precincts for 10 years as attempt after attempt to overrun the fortified city proved futile.
But in a stroke of tactical war mastery, the Greeks devised an ingenious plan to build a humongous wooden horse and therein hide a crack squad of armed elite commandos who would lay in wait and strike from inside when the time was right.
Withdrawing his Armada of ancient warships to a nearby Island and camourflaging thousands of his combat ready army, he fooled the spies of the city into believing that he had left in haste, capitulating in shame after his decade long siege.
What was deliberately left in plain sight was the wooden horse. In the extremely flawed estimation of the King of Troy, this horse was left to him as a gift in honour for the gallant defence of their city.
It would be foolhardy to think that those that benefited from the looting of the country will be too happy to just like let go of the key to the Pen that holds the Goose that lays the golden egg -Never!
They have come back fighting and they will continue doing so for as long as they still have a fighting chance, using the ill-gotten stashes of dirty dollars to relaunch their bid for a comeback.
We have of late seen a pattern of the re- emergence of stage managed flares of civil disobedience dotted all over the nation. Youth demonstrations, work place protests, students’ discontent and many more.
Yes, protests amd demonstrations are a democratic right but, as remote and un coordinated as they may seem, these may be snippets of things to come.
A calculated way of sowing seeds of discontent in a nation so much resolved to rally together and mend what was so broken over the years.
We have also been privy to complicated schemes and matrix of movements of millions upon millions of public money and unexplained lifestyles of people who basked in wealth from papers to Kings overnight.
All this at the expense of millions of poverty stricken nationals who cannot afford a decent meal on their table?
The lack of basic medicines and services in health centres?
But least we forget as Zambians who suffered at perhaps the most brutal regime that we have ever known since Independence. Must we as a people already forget the atrocities we endured?
Remember the gassing incidences of innocent Zambians? The indiscriminate ,strange and unexplained fires that consumed our markets?
The extra-judicial killings and jailing of political opponents, political cadre violence? Political party sponsored armed militias roaming the streets, illegal collection of taxes from public markets by cadres, the list goes on and on.
Must we already forget?
The biggest hurdle that confronts us and the smooth running of government just now is the enemy that lies latent from within and awaits to arise and cause destruction.
Like the Trojan Horse of old, let us not be fooled and drop our guard. We have enemies of progress and good within our midst.
Not all are bad eggs, we have very good and decent folks among us who served diligently, those who mean well. But like a brood of Vipers, others wait for a chance to dip their fangs into tender flesh and contaminate the spirit of progress and our new found drive to reconstruct our country.
Those sneaky civil servants who in cahoots with bands of bandits, who still owe their alligence to some bad elements in the former regime want to return.
Those whose taps of milk and honey have run dry because they have been closed tight and they can no longer plunder.
Those that believe that their schemes of grand corruption can be reactivated so they could continue with their chicanery.
Look out!
Let us as well meaning Zambians not slumber thinking that those that were evil are dead and buried.
They have returned and are slowly stirring back to life, given half the chance they will begin to reassert themselves. Like a cancer in remission, they plot to re-emerge with so much ferocity and vile. we could have ourselves to blame if we do not in haste plug the rot.
President Hichilema has provided the leadership and direction so far, we as Zambian nationals need to render him support by rising above all evil machinations.
But let us stand astute and ready. Let us be weary of the inherent danger that lurks amongst us. Let not the spirit of Troy and the Trojan Horse bind our free minds.
