A Zambian clergyman called Thursday for a new breed of African leaders who possess the moral capacity to take the continent into the next millennium which, he said, would be a highly competitive century in which weak nations risked being trampled upon by the economically stronger.
Nevers Mumba, president of Victory Ministries International, a local born-again church organization, Mumba said that Africa and the Third World generally needed a morally upright leadership who would share meagre resources equitably among their poor citizens.
Mumba spoke in Lusaka when he launched the National Christian Coalition, a church movement intended to help infuse Christian values into Zambian politics and other aspects of national. The coalition also intends to spearhead national reconciliation efforts to help defuse rising political tension in the country.
The next millennium begs for a new set of architects of a new society that shall be enshrined in morality, dignity for the African person and uncompromised liberty, he said.
He said that Africa should refuse to enter the next century in weakness but in resolve and confidence.
Mumba said that leaders of developing nations should also make it a priority to fight for the cancellation of their foreign debts which have kept their people in bondage.
The outspoken clergyman is a virulent critic of African governments whose leadership, he claims, is more concerned with their own welfare rather than serving their people.
Mumba said that his movement, for which he is interim leader, intended to act as a third voice on the Zambian social, economic and political scene to spearhead a revolution of morality and prosperity for the country.