{{Zambia has taken the unusual step of confirming its president is alive and well, it’s reported.}}<\/p>\n
News websites in the southern African state have been questioning the health and whereabouts of 76-year-old Michael Sata, who’s not been seen in public for weeks. As far back as May, Zambia Reports was challenging the president to prove he had not “sub-let his presidential powers” to aides.<\/p>\n
Rumours abounded that he’d left the country for treatment and, last week, the Zambian Watchdog website reported that Sata “may be in hospital somewhere”. It added: “If he is alive.”<\/p>\n
However, on Friday, Zambia Reports quoted Information minister Kennedy Sakeni as saying: “I was with (Sata) a while ago; he is well and in high spirits. He is having meetings in State House.”<\/p>\n
The site reckons it’s reminiscent of a 2006 statement that then-president Levy Mwanawasa was jogging in London, when he was actually recovering from a stroke.<\/p>\n
Investigations have had serious consequences for journalists, with two Zambian Watchdog reporters charged with sedition – criticism of the government – after reportedly being accused of possessing notes for Sata’s obituary.<\/p>\n
NMG<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Zambia has taken the unusual step of confirming its president is alive and well, it’s reported.}} News websites in the southern African state have been questioning the health and whereabouts of 76-year-old Michael Sata, who’s not been seen in public for weeks. As far back as May, Zambia Reports was challenging the president to prove […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-9061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9061"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=9061"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=9061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}