Opinion: Dr Kabungo’s Fallacious Outcry
For about 13 years now, one Dr. Joseph Kabungo has supervised the Chipolopolo’s medical staff as team physician. Last week Dr. Kabungo was relieved of his duties paving way for Dr. George Magwende who takes charge with immediate effect.
Dr. Kabungo was appointed Chipolopolo team physician sometime in 2003. Mind you, the position of national team doctor is not a full time vocation. Personnel are drawn from various institutions – private or government – to supervise an important section of the team.
These individuals are called to camp whenever the national team has an engagement either at home or abroad. And Dr Kabungo, whose official designation is Siavonga District Hospital, has executed those duties for a good 13 years.
Following the termination of his affair with the national team, Dr Kabungo has gone to the media to suggest his time out was not transparent. He says it was disrespectful. Dr Kabungo claims his removal from national duties lacked transparency because he was informed through an email. What Dr Kabungo deliberately, or conveniently chooses not to discuss is the fact that the email was preceded by a meeting with the FAZ general secretary Ponga Liwewe during which his dismissal was explained.
Dr Kabungo’s reaction smacks of ungratefulness. Instead of whining all over the show, he should be grateful he even lasted the three months the new executive has so far served. He should have voluntarily jumped out the moment George Kasengele, Nkweto Tembwe and Lusekelo Kamwambi helped themselves out.
Dr Kabungo’s conduct during the time he served FAZ was no different from the trio; he turned himself into a cadre physician that served an individual and not the national team, or association. This is why he is so upset with his removal from national duties that he has resorted to supplying footage of the national team on a ferry while in West Africa to some internet pirate with the view of discrediting the new executive.
Dr Kabungo should be grateful FAZ now has some decent people administering the game who can call him to a meeting; explain his removal and even follow it up with an email to put it on record. He needs no reminder that those individuals he eulogized and gave him the position 13 years ago harboured no such decency. Has he forgotten how his predecessor, Dr Michael Mbambiko, only learnt about his fate through a newspaper article? Is that the transparency and respect Dr Kabungo is advocating?
It’s important to note that Dr Kabungo’s allegiance was not to Chipolopolo, but to someone he played football with at Mufulira Wanderers. His appointment to that position was nothing, but through patronage. In any case, Dr Kabungo should accept that 13 years is long, and good enough to have made contribution to national service. There is nothing so special about Dr Kabungo that he should make national team service his lifetime occupation. Of the 17 appearances Zambia has made at the Africa Cup, Dr Kabungo has been to six. That’s a good record. And it should make Dr Kabungo proud to leav the stage applauding his service; not this behavior he is trying to engage in.
It’s enough that when Patrick Phiri was coach, he undermined and disrespected him. Unless Dr Kabungo is tempting us to go into details of how he undermined Patrick Phiri, how he fueled the rift between two top Zambian players. Dr Kabungo was also inciting players during the West Africa outing to rebel against team leadership. This is not as a team doctor should behave. And it demonstrated he no longer had the interest of the country at heart.
The best for Dr Kabungo is to leave the stage applauding Zambians for according him the privilege to serve at that level. There is nothing special about Dr Kabungo that should allow him be at the national team in perpetuity. Being national team physician is not a right, but a privilege. Zambia is endowed with thousands exceptional medical personnel that can do in equal measure, if not better, the same assignment Dr Kabungo has carried out.
Releasing a video here and there of something that is not unique to the African geographical landscape does not help Dr Kabungo, it makes him look like a man who has just come off an overdose of tembusha (the aloe vera plant).
bolazambia.com
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