THOUGH relatively small, Ndola’s St Andrew’s Church has a proud and unrivalled record as the only church to have produced two Republican presidents of Zambia in Frederick Titus Jacob Chiluba and Levy Patrick Mwanawasa.
Although some people would probably remember him as a member of the Baptist Church and a Jehovah’s Witness, Dr Mwanawasa was a regular worshipper at St Andrew’s Church, which is located behind the Copperbelt provincial minister’s offices.
Opened in 1959 by the Church of Scotland, which is now an integral part of the United Church of Zambia (UCZ), St Andrew’s Church was also the venue for a special requiem for former United Nations (UN) Secretary General Dag Hammarskjoeld when he died in a plane crash near Twapia Township on the Ndola-Kitwe dual carriageway.
I remember one Sunday when my friend Happy Lungu, who was standing next to me, nudged me wondering whether I had noticed that Dr Chiluba and Dr Mwanawasa were both in church that morning. Although we were singing from the same page – ‘The blood of Jesus was shed for me’ – we did not have the faintest idea that the two men were destined to become Zambia’s second and third republican presidents.
When the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) won the first multiparty elections in 1991, thereby ending UNIP’s nearly 32 years of undisrupted rule, Dr Chiluba became president. His decision to appoint Dr Mwanawasa as his vice president was greeted with unprecedented jubilation in the city of Ndola, which for the first time also saw many of its citizens appointed to ministerial posts. They included Mr Eric Silwamba, Mr Dawson Lupunga, Mr Dickson Matutu and Mr Stanley Chilele.
At the Ndola Club, a favourite meeting place for young professionals and businessmen, the atmosphere was particularly euphoric. Like John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK), the 35th president of the United States of America (US) in 1960, Dr Mwanawasa’s accession to high office was widely applauded.
The first University of Zambia (UNZA) graduate to rise to the post of Vice-President, Levy, as he was fondly known, represented youth, vitality and a promise for a new Zambia that was just beginning to rise from the ashes, like the proverbial Phoenix.
I remember Dr Chishala Chitoshi, the former High Court judge and Ndola City Council town clerk, praising President Chiluba for the rational and strategic appointment. As a young law graduate, Dr Mwanawasa set the pace by becoming the first black lawyer (excuse my poor memory if I am wrong) to work for the expatriate-dominated Jacques and Partners before he quit to set up his own legal practice called, Mwanawasa and Company based at Tazama House.
Remarkably, too, Dr Mwanawasa in 1981 literally rescued Dr Chiluba from the hangman’s noose when he and other labour leaders – Newstead Zimba, Chitalu Sampa, Timothy Walamba and local magnate, Chama Chakomboka – were arrested and detained for alleged treason.
Represented by Dr Mwanawasa, Dr Chiluba was acquitted by then Lusaka High Court Judge, Justice Manival Moodley on October 28, 1981.
It was at the height of the one-party state and many lawyers were naturally unwilling to put their heads on the chopping block for someone who had publically been branded “a dissident and a threat to law and order” by the President. Dr Mwanawasa defied the odds to ensure that justice was not only done but manifestly seen to be done.
Sharing his views with some Ndola Club members, Dr Chitoshi believed that with Levy Mwanawasa as his right-hand man to provide wise counsel, Dr Chiluba, a former Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) chairperson and a political novice, would not be found wanting on matters of national and international importance requiring legal expertise.
“I have every confidence my boy (Levy) will do it – he will definitely deliver and provide Mr Chiluba with all the necessary counsel that he will need in order to survive in his new role at State House,” Dr Chitoshi said with a sense of satisfaction. (If my memory serves me right, Dr Chitoshi was deputy town clerk at the time Dr Mwanawasa was doing his internship as a legal officer in the Ndola City Council’s Town Clerk department headed by Dr Julius Sakala with either Mr Griffith Sikananu or Mr Stanford Msichili, as city treasurer).
Among those present when Dr Chitoshi was critiquing Dr Chiluba’s Cabinet appointments, included Mr George Kunda, another UNZA law graduate, who also scored another first for Ndola (not necessarily for St Andrew’s) who became Mr Rupiah Banda’s Vice President after Dr Mwanawasa died in August 2008.
My Times of Zambia colleague Arnold Kapelembi (now human rights commissioner), former Bank of Zambia (BoZ) chief security officer, North, Raphael Kunkwa and I sat on the same Ndola Club executive committee, which was led by former Indeni general manager, Fred Zama. Frankly, none of us had the slightest inkling that the soft-spoken George Kunda, a devout Roman Catholic, would end up in Lusaka as Vice President of the country.
Indeed, who can shut the door that God has opened?
In fact if one were looking for legal representation, the Ndola Club, especially when Major John Morton was the club manager, was the first port of call because even High Court judges like former FAZ and City of Lusaka chairperson David Lewanika, Denis Chirwa, Reuben Mwape, Lloyd Siame, and Timothy Kabalata could often be found there relaxing after a hard day’s work at the courts.
Generally speaking, Ndola had a huge reservoir of legal minds, which included, among others, Mwila Chitabo, Ben Kang’ombe, Dr Soko, John Kapasa, Eric Silwamba (who was elected MMD Member of Parliament (MP) for Ndola Central in the 1991 multiparty elections), Isaac Chali, Derrick Kafunda, Wilson Mwale, Happy Chama, Eddie Tembo, and Gutsy Chilandu who were all inspired by Dr Mwanawasa’s meteoric rise to power.
From a personal perspective, I had known him for a long time as a student. I also knew his younger brother, Harry. But Dr Mwanawasa and I got closer when he became our family lawyer. He would always call me to his Tazama House offices to collect a cheque sent to me through Mwanawasa and Company from Lusaka by the Zambia National Building Society (ZNBS).
He personally handled my ZNBS mortgage files, which meant we frequently met face-to-face and chatted about ordinary things of life. He would often ask about when I last met with his old buddies from Kamuchanga in Mufulira particularly John Chimfwembe, Ignatius Sinyinza and Ivor Chungu.
When he moved to live next door to his new boss in State House, Dr Mwanawasa left his legal firm in the capable hands of Happy Chama, Mr Arthur Chiinga and Commissioner Isaac Chali. Though I never met him face-to-face while he was vice president, I did so on two occasions.
The first time was when he resigned from government as VP following the car crash that nearly claimed his life and returned to his legal practice in Lusaka. The second and last time was when he came to Gaborone on his three-day state-visit to Botswana after winning the controversial 2006 presidential elections against Mr Michael Chilufya Sata.
Our meeting at his Mukuba Pension House offices happened in a rather dramatic fashion. On our way back to Gaborone, we had arranged to pick up Pastor Malidade Lungu from the Lusaka Hotel because he had asked for a lift to Palapye, south of Francistown, where he had been assigned some pastoral duties.
I parked our vehicle in front of the hotel and went to the reception counter so the receptionist could alert Pastor Lungu that we were waiting for him. But suddenly I heard shouts of ‘Kawalala, kawalala’. Apparently, two guys had accosted my wife and her cousin Mary Mayopa who was sitting in the back seat. As my wife turned to explain a point to her, one of the guys snatched the handbag containing money and travel documents, and both men sprinted away across Cairo Road like Olympic athletes and disappeared into the crowd of shoppers on the other side.
So instead of proceeding to Livingstone/Kazungula, we went to the Lusaka Central Police Station to report the theft and get an affidavit that had to be authenticated by a registered commissioner of oaths. Dr Mwanawasa was the obvious choice as their offices are only a stone’s throw away from the police station. Once at the reception, the secretary ushered us into his office.
I immediately did noticed that my lawyer did not seem to have fully recovered from the impact of that horrendous accident that nearly crippled him. I also enquired about the fact that Happy Chama had told me that he had left a will and appointed him as the administrator of his estate. He confirmed and added that ‘in fact the boy (Chama’s son) was doing well in school.
After endorsing the documents we left for the Immigration Department to obtain travel documents to Botswana. Our last meeting was at the residence of the Zambian High Commissioner in Gaborone where he addressed Zambians resident in Botswana, urging us to return and join the national reconstruction effort. After the event, the third Republican president of Zambia saw me as he and his retinue left the venue.
“Hah, you are still here? You still look alright but most of your friends look finished,” he said jokingly.
Next time, someone called me at our offices at Dikgang Publishing Company, the owners of Mmegi and The Monitor newspapers, saying some one from the Zambian High Commission in Pretoria had informed the BBC in London that President Mwanawasa had died after suffering a stroke in Cairo where he was attending a special African Union (AU) summit on Zimbabwe. I phoned my former Editor-in-Chief Mr John Musukuma, who had been appointed Dr Mwananwasa’s special assistant for Press at State House. He said it was untrue and that they were preparing a press statement a copy of which a Miss Juliet Lwenjwe would email to me later in the day.
Tragically, Dr Mwanawasa remained in a coma and died a few days later in a Paris military hospital in France where he had been flown from the Egyptian capital. I broke down in the newsroom and phoned Mr Musukuma who mourned with me over the phone as the nation lost its leader; St Andrew’s Church lost one of its congregants; and I lost my lawyer and freedom advocate.
