A 25-year-old cyber expert from Balastone, Lusaka, has been sentenced to five years of imprisonment with hard labour after being convicted of inciting military personnel to rebel against the State. Lusaka Senior Resident Magistrate Trevor Kasanda handed down the sentence to Brighton Mwanza, a rabbit farmer and cyber consultant, after finding him guilty of inciting mutiny an offence that involves attempting to persuade individuals to abandon their loyalty to government authority.
Mwanza was arrested in August last year following social media posts on X (formerly Twitter), which were deemed to encourage members of the defence forces to engage in mutiny by referencing recent coups in West African countries. When brought before the court, Mwanza pleaded not guilty, prompting the State to present multiple witnesses before the court determined he had a case to answer.
In his defence, Mwanza stated that his arrest stemmed from tweets discussing the high cost of mealie meal and Zambians’ political dependence. He explained that one tweet read: “The price of mealie meal K300? Captain Solo could not have let this slide, we are getting soft as a nation and these politicians are taking us for granted.” Another post referenced successful resistance against neo-colonialism in other countries and urged Zambians particularly security personnel to stand up and defend the nation.
He claimed the “Captain Solo” referenced in his tweet was not the same as the Zambian figure Captain Stephen Lungu, who led the failed 1997 coup, but rather a fictional character named Jack Solo from a novel by William Boyd. He maintained there was no connection between the real-life Lungu and the character in his posts.
In delivering judgment, Magistrate Kasanda emphasized that Mwanza’s social media remarks posed a serious threat to Zambia’s long-standing peace. “The peace we enjoy today must be protected, and statements like these must be condemned,” he said.
The court found that the prosecution had successfully proven that Mwanza’s posts on X were deliberately aimed at inciting members of the Zambia Army, Air Force, National Service, and Police to defy lawful orders and attempt to overthrow the government. Consequently, the court convicted him of inciting mutiny under Section 48 of the Penal Code, Chapter 87.