Edgar Lungu is now in panic mode due to the apparent division that the continued incarceration and persecution of UPND president Hakainde Hichilema and some of his supporters is dividing the PF because some members are opposed to it.

Last night Lungu called an emergency meeting for his inner circle at which he openly disclosed that it appears that hichilema’s incarceration has made the UPND leader even more popular locally and abroad because even his foreign missions are giving him that information.

An insider who attended the meeting disclosed that the meeting by the three main church mother bodies who demanded for HH’s release and the court order to compel the police and prisons authorities to bring back the accused to Lusaka from Mukobeko has apparently exposed PF ill motives. “The President wondered what next course of action could be taken because he is worried that Hakainde is now even more popular and when others suggested the immediate release, some other camp said that that would even be more dangerous because HH would now become a household name,” said the source.

And an intelligence report submitted to Lungu and obtained by the Watchdog indicates that only a few people within the PF leadership support the persecution of HH. The report further indicates that Zambians locally and in diasporas were equally angered by the move and considered Lungu to be a dictator.