28/04/2026
My fellow UPND family... my Livingstone people...
I will NOT stand before you today as a politician.
I stand before you as your son.
Your brother. Your neighbour.
Born from this red Livingstone soil. Raised by your hands. Nurtured by YOUR struggles.
Batoka Hospital heard my first cry.
Airport Road knows my footsteps.
Kuta Way remembers my hunger.
Simatobolo Road... Chadamali Market... I saw the genesis of Mbita Market with these two eyes.
DNVs, DSV, Botswana Road... the roadside bar joints... Ellen’s, Britel, SKM... Town Centre Market, Serento, Fairmount...
I didn’t read about these roads and places I SURVIVED them with you.
From chandamali to road side , mulungushi university to LIBES every corner of this city holds a piece of my story…. OUR story.
I know what it means to go to bed wondering if tomorrow will bring a job.
I know the shame... the burning shame... of fetching dirty water in a city we sell to tourists.
I know the pain of watching our children graduate with pride... straight into hopelessness... until society calls them “junks.”
my people we can do better for our next generation.
So when I filed my application to be your Member of Parliament for Livingstone Central under our mighty UPND And President HH, it wasn’t ambition.
It’s Time, time for your own boy you raise to work with you .
Since 2006 from a shy MEs branch youth chairman, to ward youth chairman, to standing in the trenches with you through FIVE presidential general elections I can tell you now:
Your boy, Gracious Dillon Mayangwa, is ripe. And his blood is UPND blood.
This party raised me. And now, I’m ready to raise Livingstone with it.
My promise to you is not written on a poster. It’s carved into my scars:
I. WILL. NOT. ABANDON. YOU.
I know how it feels, my people because I too have been abandoned a million times over!
I will listen until my ears bleed... before I dare to speak.
Because you and I have suffered the agony of not being heard for YEARS.
I will drink this same water. I will fight these same battles.
I will live AMONGST you never above you.
Because this is not my race. It is You and Me.
We are TIRED, Livingstone!
Tired of leaders who visit during campaigns like tourists, make promises like poets, then vanish like ghosts.
Tired of a tourist capital where our mothers roast maize in the sun Our brothers selling curios only to get home to dry pipes .
Tired of “potential” that never becomes POWER in OUR hands.
Livingstone is not a postcard, my people.
It is our HOME.
And homes don’t run on empty words. They run on clean water. On jobs. On dignity.
So I ask you today and I want to hear you:
Do we accept dirty rationed water as our destiny? NO!
Do we accept jobless youth as normal? NO!
Do we accept being strangers in our own city? NO!
Together, we will build a Livingstone where:
Our youths don’t line up for piecework they OWN the businesses.
Our markets don’t beg for customers tourists come to US.
Our taps don’t run dry they run with pride.
Our children don’t dream of leaving they dream of leading.
This is not about GBD Mayangwa.
This is about that mother at Town Centre Market,
About that graduate at The roadside , hiding his degree from shame.
About that child playing on Nakatindi Road who deserves MORE than we had.
So let us RISE, Livingstone!
Let us believe again not in me, but in US!
Let us take back the city that raised us and build the city our children deserve!
I am ready to bleed for you.
I am ready to fight for you.
I am ready to SERVE you.
Comrades, the question is not if we can.
The question is : Will you stand with this movement
Because TIME NI YANU IYI!
TIME NI YAMENE IYI
TIME YAKWANA
I am Gracious Dillon Mayangwa.
Mufana wanu
Thank you. And may God bless Livingstone.God bless you. 🙏
