The Editor Zambia
Dr. O’Brien Kaaba has raised an uncomfortable but important question about the controversy surrounding Sishuwa Sishuwa: why have Zambian academics largely remained silent while some foreign academics have rushed to portray him as a victim of an attack on academic freedom?
The answer may lie precisely in the difference between how Sishuwa Sishuwa is perceived abroad and how his political activism is understood at home. 
Foreign academics looking at the matter from a distance may see only a university academic whose passport has been cancelled after he criticised President Hakainde Hichilema and his government.
From that distance, it is easy to construct a familiar narrative of an African government persecuting a critical intellectual.
But Zambia’s academics live with the consequences of Sishuwa Sishuwa’s public interventions. They have seen his commentary over time, watched his political positions develop, and, importantly, witnessed the increasingly partisan nature of some of his pronouncements.
Kaaba is, therefore, right to challenge the convenient assumption that everything Sishuwa says constitutes academic discourse.
There is a fundamental difference between scholarship and political activism. An academic is entitled to criticise the government, question public policy, and participate in political debate.
But when an academic abandons evidence, objectivity, and intellectual restraint in favour of partisan attacks, that conduct should not automatically be sheltered under the banner of academic freedom.
This is particularly important in Sishuwa Sishuwa’s case because his public record demonstrates a pronounced political bias against President Hichilema and the United Party for National Development (UPND).
His criticism has frequently gone beyond disagreement with government policy. His language has at times become intensely personal and derogatory, while his political predictions have been presented with a certainty that leaves little room for intellectual humility.
His prediction that President Hichilema would lose the August 2026 election provides a striking example. The prediction itself was perfectly legitimate. Political commentators are entitled to make electoral forecasts, and they are entitled to be wrong.
The problem was the accompanying language, which characterised President Hichilema in deeply abusive and politically charged terms.
Such language raises a legitimate question: Was this the language of a detached scholar analysing an election or that of a partisan political campaigner seeking to discredit a political opponent?
The distinction matters.
The 2026 election result, in which President Hichilema secured a decisive victory, also demonstrated the danger of allowing political conviction to overwhelm objective analysis.
A scholar can make an incorrect prediction. That is not misconduct. But when repeated political commentary is accompanied by inflammatory rhetoric, unsubstantiated allegations, and conspiracy theories, it becomes increasingly difficult to present the commentator simply as an impartial academic, exercising scholarly freedom.
Dr. Kaaba also draws attention to allegations and claims attributed to Sishuwa that were not supported by convincing evidence. One example concerns the alleged government strategy involving the burning of markets as an electoral tactic.
Such an extraordinary allegation requires extraordinary evidence. If no credible evidence is produced, responsible scholarship demands that the allegation be treated as speculation rather than presented as established fact.
This is precisely why the silence of Zambian academics may be significant.
They understand that the issue is not simply whether Sishuwa Sishuwa has criticised President Hichilema.
Zambia’s academics are themselves perfectly capable of criticising the government, and many do so.
The deeper issue is whether particular statements made by Sishuwa Sishuwa can honestly be characterised as academic work.
There is also an important contradiction in the argument that Sishuwa Sishuwa is being punished merely for his scholarship. Sishuwa Sishuwa himself has distinguished between “Sishuwa Sishuwa the public intellectual or political commentator” and “Sishuwa Sishuwa the scholar”.
By his own formulation, therefore, his political commentary should not automatically be conflated with his academic work.
That distinction undermines attempts to portray every controversy involving him as an assault on academic freedom.
A scholar who becomes a political commentator assumes the responsibilities of public discourse. He can be partisan. He can criticise.
He can even campaign for a particular political position. But he cannot reasonably expect his political statements to receive the immunity enjoyed by peer-reviewed scholarship simply because he happens to be an academic.
Dr. Kaaba is, therefore, right to warn against what could be called the romanticisation of the dissident intellectual.
There is a tendency in some international circles to regard every outspoken African critic of government as a courageous victim and every government response as evidence of authoritarianism.
Such a simplistic approach can itself become a form of intellectual condescension because it assumes that local citizens, journalists, and academics are incapable of understanding their own political environment.
Dr. Kaaba deserves credit for refusing to join the noisy chorus automatically portraying Sishuwa Sishuwa as a persecuted academic. His intervention reminds Zambia that academic freedom is not a licence to abandon intellectual integrity.
Zambia needs fearless academics. But it also needs honest academics, objective academics, and academics willing to distinguish evidence from political belief.
The silence of Zambian academics may, therefore, not represent indifference to academic freedom. It may instead reflect a more informed understanding of the person and the politics behind the controversy.
Foreign solidarity may be loud.
But those who know the local context may have good reasons to remain unconvinced.
