By EditorZambia
ZAMBIA is once again forced to look itself in the mirror. A mirror that reflects years of plunder intimidation and moral decay that defined the Patriotic Front (PF) reign.
In a rare and solemn intervention, former First Lady Mama Vera Chiluba has called on the nation to repent, not in politics but in conscience and spirit. 
Her message is not casual. It is weighty. It is accusatory. And it lands at a time when the country is still counting the cost of a damaged economy, broken institutions and wounded public trust.
Mama Vera’s call is anchored in Psalm 54, a cry for divine judgment and deliverance from oppression.
It is a scripture that speaks directly to a season where strangers rose against the nation and oppressors sought after its soul while deliberately setting God aside. This was not a period of innocent mistakes. It was a system of extraction where public resources were treated as private loot, and the suffering of citizens was reduced to background noise.
Under the PF administration, looting was not an allegation. It was a pattern. Roads were overpriced, contracts were inflated, debt was accumulated without accountability, and public offices became cash points.
While a small elite lived large, ordinary Zambians were fed slogans instead of services. Hospitals ran short of medicines, youths were abandoned to joblessness, and law enforcement was weaponised to protect power rather than people.
The atrocities went beyond finances. There was political violence, intimidation of opponents, shrinking democratic space, and a culture of fear. Citizens were told to stay quiet while their future was being auctioned. Critics were labelled enemies. Truth was treated as treason. This is the context in which Mama Vera Chiluba’s words must be understood.
Psalm 54 is not a comfort verse. It is a judgment prayer. Save me O God by thy name and judge me by thy strength. It calls out oppressors who rise without regard for God. It declares that evil will be rewarded back to those who practice it.
In invoking this scripture, Mama Vera is not calling for vengeance by human hands. She is calling for moral reckoning. For acknowledgement and repentance.
Repentance is uncomfortable because it demands truth. It demands that beneficiaries of the PF era admit that the wealth they flaunted was built on national pain. It demands that those who enabled silence confess complicity. It demands that the nation stop romanticising a period that nearly broke the State.
Zambia cannot move forward while pretending that nothing happened. Healing requires naming the wound. Accountability requires memory. Repentance requires humility. Mama Vera Chiluba’s call is, therefore, not about party politics. It is about national cleansing.
The Psalm ends with confidence that God delivers from all trouble and exposes the truth about enemies. That is the hope. That Zambia can be delivered from cycles of looting and abuse. That truth will stand. That the nation will choose integrity over appetite.This is not a time for denial. It is a time for reflection, repentance, and resolve. History is watching. And so is God.
