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Socialist Party leader, Fred M’membe, has accused the government of “foreignising” political opponents following its decision to cancel the National Registration Card (NRC) and passport of Tonse-Pamodzi Alliance Secretary General, Celestine Mukandila.
The Ministry of Home Affairs and Internal Security on Friday issued a Government Gazette notice .cancelling and invalidating Mukandila’s NRC and Zambian passport, saying the documents had been obtained through “fraud, false declaration and misrepresentation.
But M’membe said the decision was unacceptable and amounted to the “foreignising” of political opponents, which he said should stop.
“A similar thing had happened to John Chinula and William Banda in the 1990s after their party, United National Independence Party (UNIP), lost power to Frederick Chiluba and the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD). They were deported to Malawi,” M’membe said.
He said Chinula and Banda received financial and other support while in Malawi, adding that Chinula later died there, while efforts by him and others persuaded former President Levy Mwanawasa to allow Banda to return to Zambia.
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M’membe said the cancellation or revocation of citizenship across Africa was a complex legal and political issue that had historically been used for political exclusion, national security enforcement or to address fraudulent documentation.
He said international human rights law and frameworks such as the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights prohibited arbitrary deprivation of nationality, while arguing that several forms of citizenship cancellation persisted across the continent.
“A prominent and widely criticised form of citizenship cancellation involves governments stripping the nationality of political opponents, human rights activists, or journalists. This weaponisation of denationalisation often leaves individuals stateless or exiled,” M’membe said.
He cited cases including the reported revocation of the nationality of two France-based Chadian activists by President Mahamat Idriss Déby in late 2025, as well as the stripping of Zambia’s founding President Kenneth Kaunda’s citizenship in 1995 under the Chiluba government.
He also cited Côte d’Ivoire’s stripping of former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara’s nationality in 2000.
M’membe acknowledged that governments also cancel national registration documents or passports when they determine that such documents were obtained through false declarations, misrepresentation or administrative irregularities.
“Mukandila doesn’t deserve this unfair, unjust, and inhuman treatment,” he said.
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