Controversial musician Chama Fimba whose stage name is Pilato will today face the music. For a change, Pilato will not dance to his own music but will dance the music of the Zambia police. Pilato has been summoned to the police over his recent song ‘a Lungu anabwera’. Some Patriotic Front cadres reported him to the police that he had defamed President Lungu in that song.
If the police go ahead and arrest Pilato, the musician would have made history as the first Zambian musician to be arrested for a song! And in the same vein, the PF would make history as the first Zambian government to arrest a musician for a song.
Pilato is not the first musician to sing a song considered to be political or highly critical of the sitting President. Nashil Pichen Kazembe was the first in this regard (after independence). Kazembe did a song titled ‘tata Welensky’ which lamented about the hard times his generation found itself in. Dr Kaunda didn’t arrest Kazembe but just banned his song.
Other political songs that have been done since then include;
Salaula by Peter Sosi Juma
Common man by P K Chishala
Mwebuteko by P K Chishala
Tomato balunda by Twice
President’s daughter by St Maiko
Mad President by St Maiko
Manyandule by Impi
Basakala by Impi
Bufi by Pilato
One thing that PF cadres have failed to tell us is how Pilato has defamed the President. Maybe the police will tell us this morning. That song speaks of the current happenings in the PF. How the PF have brought back RB whom they fought so hard to remove from power. Where is the defamation in that?
Maybe it is the suit full of bottles of Jameson. Again we doubt if that is defamation. We say this because it is a well known fact, nationwide, that Edgar Lungu loves his beer. This is an issue that has been debated widely and even the President himself commented on. He even once used beer drinking as a mark of true friendship. During an interview with SABC, President Lungu said former vice Guy Scott was not his friend ‘because I don’t drink with him’. That’s how seriously the President takes beer drinking. So why should PF cadres be ashamed on his behalf?
We must all stand in solidarity with Pilato because it is not Pilato who is on trail but our rights. Remember the famous saying; ‘they came for the Jews but I kept quite……finally they came for me and there was no one to speak for me’. This is why we commend Petersen and St Maiko for showing solidarity with Pilato. More musicians should do this.
And even if the police arrest Pilato and they successively prosecute him in court and have him jailed, what will that achieve? Will that stop his song? To the contrary we believe the song will go like a bushfire. In this day of social media, the correct term is ‘it will go viral’. The song will even go international as the international media report that a Zambian musician has been arrested for a song.
The song will not stopped. For how can it be stopped when people are playing it on phones, computers and tablets? As the PF talk about the song, the more people will request for it. And Pilato wont be the last musician to sing a song critical of the President. More musicians will do it as circumstances dictate.
You kill Pilato but you wont kill ‘a Lungu anabwera’.