The Editor Zambia: Analysis
The recent uproar surrounding Lieutenant General Maliti Solochi’s visit to the University of Zambia (UNZA) reflects more political opportunism than principled concern.
While critics have rushed to demand investigations and cast aspersions on the Zambia National Service commander, a sober and balanced assessment suggests that the reaction is exaggerated, selective, and largely divorced from context. 
At the centre of the controversy is an act that government officials have described as compassion — the distribution of cash to students during a period of heightened tension on campus.
Yet senior political figures such as former Finance Minister Katele Kalumba and opposition leader Richard Silumbe have framed the gesture as suspicious, calling for probes by oversight bodies.
This framing, however, raises an important question: when did empathy become a crime?
Universities, including the University of Zambia, are not isolated from the socio-economic realities affecting the country.
Students have been grappling with serious sanitation challenges, erratic water supply, and broader cost-of-living pressures.
In such an environment, any intervention that offers immediate relief — however modest — should not automatically be viewed through a lens of conspiracy.
Critics argue that the timing of the gesture, coinciding with student unrest, suggests an attempt to influence protests.
This argument is speculative at best.
It assumes intent without evidence and ignores the possibility that Solochi, as a public servant, simply responded to human need in a moment of crisis. Compassion does not cease to be valid simply because it occurs during a politically sensitive period.
Moreover, the calls for investigations appear inconsistent when placed against Zambia’s broader political history. Public officials, politicians, and even civil society actors have often provided material support to communities without triggering such intense scrutiny.
Why, then, is this particular act being singled out? The answer may lie less in the action itself and more in the identity of the individual involved.
The attempt to draw institutional boundaries around acts of kindness also risks creating an unnecessarily rigid interpretation of public service.
While it is true that defence and security institutions must maintain professionalism, it is equally important to recognise that their leaders are not devoid of personal agency or humanity.
A blanket expectation that they must disengage entirely from civilian hardship is both unrealistic and counterproductive.
It is also worth noting that the focus on Solochi has diverted attention from the real crisis at hand — the persistent sanitation failures and infrastructure deficiencies affecting students.
The tragic death of a student in a sewer trench should have catalysed a unified national response aimed at addressing systemic shortcomings.
Instead, the discourse has been hijacked by political point-scoring.
Even voices such as Richwell Siamunene, who have criticised the manner of the gesture, acknowledge implicitly that assistance itself is not the issue.
The debate, therefore, should be about improving coordination and transparency in such interventions, not criminalising them outright.
Calls for the Anti-Corruption Commission to launch investigations, in the absence of clear evidence of wrongdoing, risk trivialising the institution’s mandate.
Oversight bodies must be allowed to focus on genuine cases of corruption rather than being drawn into politically charged controversies that lack substantive grounding.
Ultimately, this episode reveals a troubling pattern in Zambia’s public discourse — the tendency to politicise every action, even those rooted in goodwill.
If leaders are to be discouraged from responding directly to citizens’ immediate needs for fear of backlash, the country risks fostering a culture of detachment rather than service.
Lieutenant General Solochi’s actions may not have been perfectly executed, but they do not warrant the level of outrage they have attracted.
What Zambia needs now is not manufactured scandal, but constructive engagement with the real issues affecting its people.
