Africa Freedom Day Press Conference

Added: 2026-05-26

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[00:01:21]Your excellency president of John Amosi alliance the vice president of running honorable Mizuru the secretary generals for both tonsi national campaign manager Members of the council, leaders from both alliances.

[00:01:52]Good morning. My name is Dr. Lawrence.

[00:01:56]I will ask that we all rise to sing the national anthem.

[00:02:12]Good morning everyone. Uh shall we sing the first stanza and the chorus of the nation anthem? I'll start.

[00:02:21]Stand and sing. O Zambia, proud and free.

[00:02:27]Land of joy in unity.

[00:02:33]Victors in the struggle for the right.

[00:02:40]We won freom fight while strong and free.

[00:02:52]Praise be to God.

[00:02:55]Praise be. Praise be.

[00:02:59]our great nation Zambia. Zambia free we stand the flag of our land Zambia.

[00:03:17]Praise to thee oh one strong and free.

[00:03:31]Thank you.

[00:03:34]Shall we bow our heads and pray?

[00:03:37]Gracious heaven father, we come before you this morning. God, we humble ourselves.

[00:03:44]We bring ourselves unto you, God, to thank you for this day. We thank you for the unity that you've brought upon us.

[00:03:52]God, we thank you for the love you have given us. God, we are here out of your wisdom and we further seek wisdom, oh God, for the leader of this particular movement that you created to be a leader of this nation. We also seek your blessings also and wisdom for the running mate also. God, we pray as we do all what we're doing that you may grant us your glory and that you may grant us strength. Protect us and be with us. We pray in Jesus's name. Amen.

[00:04:33]>> I welcome you all to this special African freedom day presser. Um allow me to invite the secretary general Dr. Chris Zubani Zimba who is going to lead us going forward. Thank you so much.

[00:04:55]>> Thank you so much. Thank you.

[00:04:58]Uh good morning everyone once more.

[00:05:01]Uh I salute you all and I adopt the salutations that have already been adopted to recognize the Tony Alliance president and presidential candidate.

[00:05:14]Honorable Mundik, we welcome you, sir.

[00:05:21]The running mates and the vice president of the Tons Alliance, Honorable Makulu, we welcome you, sir.

[00:05:28]And all distinguished distinguished members of the Tonsi Alliance.

[00:05:35]This will be a very short event.

[00:05:38]It is an event designated to commemorate, celebrate and remember the Africans across the continent, men and women who brave themselves to fight for to fight against colonalism and oppression.

[00:05:57]Sons and daughters of the soil across the continent who made a contribution in different ways.

[00:06:05]Many lost their lives, shed their blood and indeed braved it in order for us to see political emancipation.

[00:06:15]It is a day designated by the African Union and it's a day we celebrate as Africans. Therefore, the Tony Alliance president this morning who addressed the nation who addressed the tons and alliance across members across the country to ensure that this day is celebrated in the tono colors. Ladies and gentlemen, therefore allow me not to waste your time to call upon the president of Tony Tony Pamosi Alliance and our presidential candidate on the nearly SDV president to address the Mr. President Thank you. Thank you very much countrymen and women.

[00:07:22]I will start by recognizing and saluting some of key African liberation heroes such aswam kuruma abdu nessa Nelson Mandela Patric Lumumba Julius Kambara Kenneth Kawa Robert Mug Gab, Thomas Sankara, Samura, Michelle among others.

[00:08:01]My fellow Zambians and on this day my fellow Africans, Africa Freedom Day is not merely a date on a calendar.

[00:08:17]It is a sermon to conscious.

[00:08:20]It is a reminder that freedom must live not only in the pages of our history but in our homes, in our institutions, our streets, our speech, our minds, and our dreams.

[00:08:38]Freedom is the opening of the human spirit.

[00:08:43]Zambia has always carried a special calling in Africa. A nation born with a promise of peace with dignity, unity with purpose, and freedom with responsibility.

[00:09:00]In the spirit of Dr. Kenneth Ka's timeless words, and I quote, "We have been shouting in the darkness.

[00:09:11]Now there is the great light of dawn on the horizon and I know that Zambia will be free.

[00:09:21]Yet today many citizens ask what becomes of freedom when the light itself begins to dim.

[00:09:32]Deemed by hardship, deemed by division, deemed by shrinking democratic space, deemed by the slow erosion of constitutional order.

[00:09:47]And on this African freedom day, we must speak honestly because a nation does not defend freedom through silence.

[00:09:59]What freedom do we celebrate when the constitution itself is violated?

[00:10:06]What freedom survives when constitutionalism is wounded through the illegal and deeply contested constitution amendment bill number seven. When the supreme law of the land is treated not as a secret covenant with the people but as an obstacle to political convenience.

[00:10:33]What democracy we defend when 77 bills are enacted by a parliament operating without a lawful corum placing a shadow over the legitimacy of laws imposed upon the people.

[00:10:50]What liberty do citizens truly possess under draconian cyber laws that have chilled criticism, expanded fear and threatened the freedom to speak, question, organize and dissent?

[00:11:08]What freedom of association remains when the public gatherings act turns the constitutional right to gather, assemble and participate into a bureaucratic permission slip, criminalizing the ordinary democratic life of its citizens.

[00:11:28]My fellow Zambians, when a people are made to fear their voice, democracy itself is placed on trial.

[00:11:39]When criticism is treated as criminality, institutions lose their moral authority.

[00:11:47]When governments fear ideas, they reveal uncertainity about their own legitimacy.

[00:11:56]Africa's liberation struggle was not fought so that independent Africans would inherit managed speech, controlled association, weakened institutions and constitutional shortcuts.

[00:12:13]Freedom cannot mean independence without liberty.

[00:12:19]Freedom cannot mean elections without democratic space. Freedom cannot mean laws without legality.

[00:12:28]And yet even now we refuse despair because dawn is not the end of the story. Dawn is the beginning of light returning.

[00:12:41]This is why our lantern matters. A lantern does not wait for daylight. It is lit precisely for uncertain times. It is hope carried by ordinary hands. It is courage made visible through our 100 days of hope journey which began on the 4th of May. We were we were not called to stand on the roadside and watch history pass us by.

[00:13:11]We are called to lift the light, protect the light, walk by the light together with courage, with unity, with love for our country.

[00:13:23]What freedoms must we protect for Zambia's future?

[00:13:29]Freedoms of thought to imagine a better republic. Freedom of expression to speak, write, question, sing, create and criticize without fear.

[00:13:46]Freedom of movement and association to gather, belong, organize and participate fully in national life. Freedom to debate and innovate. Because when a nation fears ideas, it begins to fear its own future.

[00:14:07]And that future must be built by us, not borrowed from others. The true light of Zambia must come from within. From the wealth of our land, from the intelligence of our people, from honest work, enterprise, innovation and national self-belief.

[00:14:31]Real freedom is not merely political independence. It is the freedom to build, to produce, to create, to transform our natural wealth into shared prosperity. To release the genius of our young people, to build institutions stronger than personalities and laws stronger than political experience.

[00:14:56]We cannot lose another generation to silence.

[00:15:00]We cannot ask young Zambians to inhabit a country where they were never allowed to help shape to the youth of Zambia.

[00:15:13]Your voice is not a threat to be managed. It is a national resource to be heard. Your purpose is not oppression.

[00:15:24]It is contribution. Your ideas are not noise.

[00:15:28]You are the music of Zambia's tomorrow.

[00:15:32]And to every citizen, Zambia will not be built by one tribe, one region, one language, one generation or one political.

[00:15:45]It will be built by all of us, united in the full dignity of our diversity under God.

[00:15:56]Let us build a Zambia worthy of those who came before us and worthy of those yet unborn. A Zambia where constitutionalism is restored. Where institutions save the people, not power.

[00:16:14]Where public life is measured by service. Where liberty is defended, not negotiated away.

[00:16:23]where the people stand at the center of every national promise. We as the ton PFOI Alliance reaffirm the eternal creed, one Zambia, one nation.

[00:16:39]This is the challenge Africa places before us. So let Zambia rise. Let Zambia shine. Lift the lantern high with clarity, courage, conviction and love.

[00:16:54]Guard it. Share it. Become a light to others. And let Africa see in Zambia not a nation waiting for freedom's promise to be fulfilled, but a nation courageous enough to reclaim it. God bless Zambia.

[00:17:15]God bless Africa. Thank you very much countrymen and women.

[00:17:26]>> Thank you very much.

[00:17:28]Uh we may be upstanding for the Thank you. Uh once again we will sing the national anthem and that's the end of the prayer today.

[00:17:50]One land and one nation is our cry.

[00:17:56]Dignity and peace cry like a noble eagle in it.

[00:18:08]Brother under the sun.

[00:18:13]All one strong and free.

[00:18:19]Praise be to God.

[00:18:22]Praise be. Praise be. Bless our great nations. Zambia. Zambia. Free men we stand under the flag of our land.

[00:18:38]Zambia.

[00:18:41]Praise to thee, oh one strong and free.

[00:18:52]>> Shall we pray?

[00:18:53]>> Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for the words that have been spoken.

[00:18:58]And as we come to the end of this engagement, we pray that God go before us. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen.