Born A Fighter

@pap_mas @LuboyaChadrack Ntungulu in Bemba language

❇️Comment appelé-t-on ce fruit dans votre langue? ✅Tondolo

5 million tonnes! Zambia’s biggest ever maize harvest. My fellow farmers, we keep working. Bally

I was having breakfast in my hotel today when an American asked me about Zambia🇿🇲. I explained that we have 10 provinces compared to their 50 states: Lusaka = a mix of New York + the Washington metropolitan area (DMV). Government, finance, embassies, deal-making, networking and everyone acting “busy.” Southern = Texas + California. Cattle, farming, big land, quiet money, business-minded people, and Victoria Falls & Lake Kariba carrying the tourism economy. Copperbelt = Michigan + Pennsylvania. Industrial backbone. Mining towns. Old money. Union vibes. People who remember when the economy was “serious.” North-Western = Alaska. Rich in natural resources, sparsely populated, and everyone believes the future is there. Western = Louisiana. Strong cultural identity, flood plains, proud traditions, and its own rhythm entirely. Eastern = Iowa + Kansas. Agriculture, hardworking people, and quietly influential politically. Central = Ohio. Right in the middle of everything. Farms, transport links, mining, logistics. The “swing province” energy. Northern = Washington. Rain, greenery, lakes, waterfalls and underrated natural beauty. Muchinga = Colorado. Mountains, scenery, adventure, wilderness and people forgetting how beautiful it actually is. Luapula = Minnesota + a little Florida fishing-town energy. Water everywhere. Fish economy. Relaxed pace of life. Hidden tourism potential. Zambia is basically America compressed into 10 provinces… just with better weather, less stress, nshima, fewer lights and highways. 🇿🇲

Senegal is becoming a perfect case study of what happens when revolutionary politics finally meets the realities of governing. It’s easy to unite people against a system. It’s much harder to run the economy, negotiate debt, satisfy voters and still maintain the purity of the movement. A lot of liberation-style movements in Africa struggle once they transition from opposition to government because charisma and slogans eventually collide with budgets, IMF pressure and state institutions. That’s exactly what we’re watching in Senegal right now.

James has spent years using that bicycle to market Zambia, attend traditional ceremonies, push tourism campaigns and connect communities across countries. He’s now cycling over 3,000km from Lusaka to Cape Town carrying nothing but Zambian colours 🇿🇲 This is the sort of story that usually only trends after foreign media picks it up, yet it’s an insane feat of endurance and determination 💪🏽🚴🏾‍♂️🌍🇿🇲

Zambian youths fearlessly riding bicycles in streets of Lusaka. 🇿🇲👀

A sitting U.S. President has traveled to China with 17 heavyweight CEOs, as in 1,2.3.4....🤔 The delegation reportedly includes executives from companies like Apple, Tesla, Nvidia, BlackRock, Boeing, Goldman Sachs and others. That’s basically Washington saying “American corporate power is part of American geopolitical power.”

A woman who thinks before making a decision and says "My man won't like this" is type of women you need by your side.

If you love someone because they love you, that is empathy. If you love someone for their beauty, that is attraction. If you love someone for what they offer, that is interest. If you love someone for their kindness, that is admiration. But when you cannot fully explain why you love them, only that your heart does, that is love.

White parents are at schools, supporting their kids who are playing sports. Black parents are at funerals, supporting grieving families. Some people invest in the future. Some invest in the past. Your choice. 🙏🏽

From Zambia, I have been following the Phala Phala Court Proceedings in South Africa. SA is by far the most stable political democracy in SADC. They took the President to court and he lost. Elsewhere in Africa, a President would never be taken to court in the first place !!!

Well done to the EFF and to ATM for pursuing the Phala Phala matter. Credit where it is due. Parliament, once again, is found to be a lackey endorser of party politics. As was the case with the Nkandla matter, parliament fell dreadfully short of ensuring executive accountability & practising oversight. Thank goodness for the separation of powers, where the courts have sufficient independence to exercise judgment based on the facts, not in favour. But most of all, thank goodness for the political parties that kept this issue at the forefront of our political discourse. The major winner here is the citizens of South Africa: the courts can and should make a judgment based on facts and evidence. The institutions are still working. The centre is still holding. As for the president, it's time to go. This issue has hamstrung the nation for long enough. Nkos’sikelela iAfrika. VT

Never judge a book from its cover

The danger I've observed is when both sides ignore even basic common sense to defend their camps. UPND colleagues now justify the same wrongs we once condemned together under PF. They’ve also made PF the standard: it’s OK for UPND to do something as long as PF did it too. That has been the saddest part for me. People voted PF out because of some of those wrongs, hoping UPND would correct them, not inherit them. PF diehards are something else too: they not only dismiss every good UPND effort, especially on macroeconomics, they also trivialize some of the bad things done under PF, regardless of how harmful they were to citizens or how they led to PF’s loss of popularity. What I read from both situations is extremely worrying: people are loyal to individuals and political parties, not to the country or the flag. The difference between right and wrong these days lies in who is doing it. These characteristics can’t build a nation; they only divide it. Nation building requires space for all citizens to air their concerns and views, which must be judged on their own merits and not on the political or other affiliations of those who express them.

HOW THE ZULUS SHAPED MODERN DAY SOUTHERN AFRICA: For students of history it's actually buffling watching the recent protest in South Africa led by the Zulu tribe against black "foreigners". Accusing these black "foreigners" of invading their land. It highlights ignorance of their own history as a tribe. Here's a bit of some history for the Zulus 1. It all starts with their great king Shaka Zulu and his desire to conquer as much lands as he could. An ambitious intelligent warrior who took a small clan to a 45 000 strong empire. A military genius of his time, introduced the short spear, buffalo horns encirclement tactic and amabutho regiments 2. By 1822 he ruled over so much lands, that in turn triggered the era known as the Mfecane. Defeated chiefs fled. Clans migrated. And in all this Shaka's generals (defeated and defecting) took the Zulu playbook north 3. Mzilikazi - Shaka's general who is said to have been sent on a raid but decided not to return with the spoils (mainly cattle), decided to flee north. Using Shaka's superior military tactics, defeated the weak Shona tribes and conquered what's now Zimbabwe. Establishing the Ndebele/Matebele kingdom. His son Lobengula was the last traditional ruler before colonisation by the British 4. Soshangane - another Nguni commander who pushed into Mozambique and founded the Gaza Empire. He imposed Nguni/Zulu beliefs and systems on the Tsonga, Ndau peoples 5. Zwangendaba - led Nguni groups north through Malawi, Zambia all the way to Tanzania. The Nguni states around Lake Malawi trace back to him One kingdom (The Zulu Kingdom). Three generals. A ripple that redrew half of Southern Africa. He reshaped half of Southern Africa yet his descendants in South Africa act as if they're in no way connected to the people from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique Know your history African child.

A Quick link up with the Congolese Legend Koffi Olamide ❤️

Nigerian Afrobeats star Davido wore the traditional Lubemba attire, the signature cultural dress of the Bemba-speaking people of Zambia’s Northern Province, during his performance at the Lusaka Showgrounds last night. The outfit is typically worn at the Ukusefya pa Ng’wena ceremony.

👑🦅 NUMBER ONE