I guess you are busy moving house, following your electoral defeat, which spelled the end of your tenancy at State House in Lusaka. When things are less hectic, please spare a few moments to read this missive – it’s not that long.

I feared for the worst when, in the midst of vote counting, you declared the elections were neither free nor fair and urged electoral authorities not to proceed with the exercise. This was astounding. As a lawyer, you should know that the only recourse under Zambian law is for aggrieved candidates to approach the courts only after a winner has been declared – and to do that within seven days.

When your office issued the statement expressing your desire to have vote counting halted, I was worried that you were going to do a Robert Mugabe. You remember in 2008 when the late Zimbabwe President, having lost an election, tweaked the numbers big time so that there would be a runoff? Simultaneously, his party unleashed an orgy of violence that claimed hundreds of lives in opposition strongholds.

I’m glad you eventually saw sense, thus ensuring the perpetuation of Zambia’s tradition of transferring power peacefully, which started in 1991, when your nation’s founding President gracefully bowed out after losing to an upstart from the labour movement.

To be frank, I don’t believe you conceded defeat of your own volition. On the day you did so, Ernest Bai Koroma, the former Sierra Leone President who led the African Union team that observed your elections, tweeted that he had had “fruitful discussions” with you.

While you were ranting about the elections not being free and fair – as if it wasn’t your government that organised them – Koroma insisted they were indeed free and fair. He must have leaned on you to do the right thing during your meeting.

Now that you have left office, you should have lots of time on your hands. I guess you would not mind using some of it to correct what I believe are flaws concerning the way the Southern African Development Community (SADC) goes about its business. For example, when Koroma and his team were contradicting you about the fairness and freeness of the elections, the silence from SADC leaders was deathly. The same leaders have been equally silent despite the persecution being meted out by the eSwatini government to those agitating for political change. This tradition of seeing and hearing no evil goes back a long way, and it would be difficult to parry off accusations that the SADC is nothing more than a trade union for Presidents and that it doesn’t give a hoot about ordinary people.

I beg you: please use some of your time as a retired President to convince serving SADC Presidents to speak out for oppressed citizens in the region. We miss Ian Khama and Levy Mwanawasa; they didn’t mince their words when a fellow President misbehaved.

Finally, I would like you to address the issue of who may become President in SADC countries.

As I recall, when Michael Sata – the then leader of your party, the Patriotic Front (PF) – died in 2014 while serving as State President, you were not number two in the PF, and neither were you the Vice President of Zambia. Both positions were occupied by Guy Scott, while you were secretary-general of the party and an ordinary Cabinet Minister.

You and I know Scott was sidelined not because he was incompetent, but because of the DNA he inherited from his forebears, which gave him a light hue.

I think it’s time everyone is given a chance to lead, irrespective of pigmentation. Please canvass this with SADC political parties, especially the former liberation movements. What should matter is that one is a citizen.

Yours sincerely

Me