The Editor Zambia
Professor Naison Ngoma, who is a retired Zambia Airforce (ZAF) Colonel, is certainly entitled to his view that the Zambia Police Service should remain the primary institution responsible for maintaining law and order.
In a normal, peaceful environment, there should be no disagreement with that principle. But what Prof. Ngoma, who happens to live in Zambia and not talking from abroad, appears to overlook is that nations do not always operate under normal circumstances. 
There are moments when the security of the nation, the protection of citizens, and the preservation of peace require the deployment of capabilities that go beyond ordinary policing.
The army does not exist merely to sit in barracks and wait for a conventional foreign invasion. Modern national security has evolved, and armed forces in many countries are called upon to support civilian authorities when serious threats overwhelm the capacity of ordinary law-enforcement agencies.
The question, therefore, should not simply be whether soldiers are visible in domestic security operations, but whether their deployment was necessary, lawful, proportionate, and undertaken to protect national peace.
There are times when the army has been used precisely to bring order where civilian authorities have faced situations that threaten to spiral beyond their control.
History provides numerous examples across the world where military personnel have been called upon during severe civil disturbances, national emergencies, natural disasters, and situations involving serious threats to public safety.
Such deployments do not automatically transform a democracy into a military state. What matters is the legal framework governing the deployment and the conduct of the forces involved.
Prof. Ngoma’s argument also risks presenting the police and the military as mutually exclusive institutions when, in reality, modern security operations frequently depend on cooperation between them.
The police may remain responsible for law enforcement while the military provides additional manpower, logistical capacity, transportation, communications, surveillance, or security support.
In extraordinary circumstances, that cooperation can make the difference between containing a crisis and allowing it to descend into widespread disorder.
Zambia should, therefore, not apologise for taking preventive measures when there are credible concerns about national security.
President Hakainde Hichilema made his position clear before the elections when he warned that if circumstances required it, the army would be deployed.
He subsequently acted on that warning. Whether one agrees with the political decision or not, it cannot reasonably be characterised as a surprise.
The 2026 elections were a national undertaking involving millions of citizens, sensitive electoral materials, and hundreds of locations across a vast country.
The overriding responsibility of any government is to ensure that citizens can vote and return home safely.
If intelligence or circumstances suggested that additional security was necessary, refusing to use the military simply because soldiers should not be visible in civilian environments would have been an irresponsible abdication of government responsibility.
It is also important for Prof. Ngoma to distinguish between militarising civilian life and using the military temporarily to reinforce national security.
Prof. Ngoma is right that the police must remain the principal institution for routine law enforcement. But he is wrong if his argument is interpreted to mean that the army must remain on the sidelines regardless of the seriousness of a national security threat.
A responsible government must have options. It must be prepared for circumstances in which the police are overstretched, overwhelmed, or confronted by threats requiring capabilities that only the defence forces possess.
The army’s constitutional purpose is to defend the Republic, and safeguarding the peace and stability of that Republic cannot always be separated neatly from domestic security.
The ultimate test, therefore, should not be whether soldiers were deployed. It should be whether their deployment protected Zambia, preserved peace, respected the law, and prevented a dangerous situation from becoming worse.
If those conditions were met, then military support should not be condemned simply because it occurred on the civilian side of the security equation.
Peace is too precious to be sacrificed at the altar of rigid institutional boundaries.
