•POLICE raid Chibolya Township to crack down on drug trafficking activities.

By SAM PHIRI –
A SPINE-CHILLING feeling automatically creeps into someone when eyes meet with those of the long known infamous Chibolya ‘drug abusers and daylight muggers’ especially on what is called “Gaza Street”.
It is just a scary place though not all residents are in that knotty bracket! Even the set-up and the dense population of this particular part of unplanned settlement would trigger questions of how safe one might feel to freely and safely walk through
Real incidences have been reported of unsuspecting people being robbed of property.
A number of people believe a positive change is probable.
Home Affairs Deputy Minister Steven Kampyongo is happy that the combined team of the Zambia Police and the Drug Enforcement Commission (DEC) have started creating a new Chibolya free  of illicit activities.
Mr Kampyongo said with other line ministries like Local Government and Housing working towards transforming the township through resettlement and infrastructure development exercise, he is sure a brighter day would be seen in Chibolya Township.
“We have made a step as Home Affairs by at least creating an environment that would be conducive for developmental projects and normal legal trade without people living in fear of being robbed or attacked,” he said.
Local Government and Housing Ministry has not yet announced resettlement or restructuring plans of these residents though the Home Affairs Ministry  says it is now almost a safe zone for development.
This is the township with a mixture of personalities dwelling in slapdash structures that they have come to call homes… Of course, there are exceptions of few decent structures which are obviously swallowed by a myriad of makeshifts buildings.
Marked roads leading to specific places are non-existent in this area though people would still find their final destinations through these dusty footpaths paths snaking through structures; even under a heavy influence of alcohol.
The only well-known and named stretch though is the notorious ‘Gaza’ mainly because of its history in high levels of illicit activities like the open daylight marijuana trade.
Taking an analytical look at these buildings that conceal high levels of criminality, it leaves one to wonder how much most of these  people make to withstand the heat in summer as most of these houses have iron sheets just less than 60 centimeters above an average height.
Pigeon-holes are an alternative for windows in this case such that the windy and chilly seasons would find most of these holes stuffed with rags creating pitch darkness in the rooms.
This is a life in the notorious Chibolya Township, barely two kilometres south-west of the city centre.
Some inhabitants would do anything beyond imagination and at anytime including a delve into aggravated robbery!
Chibolya Township is as old as the beginning of Lusaka which began as a village and later expanded into a town then city.
It dates back to 1905 as African workers who served settlers in the nearby precincts occupied the area.
It initially consisted of a row of adobe brick wall houses on the south-western
fringes of the present site
The structures still stand and are occupied by various types of workers todate and still engage in a myriad of activities shaped by the economy of the day including drug dealing which has lately caused a furor with authorities to a point of a clampdown
Chibolya has connotation of being ‘a deserted homestead’ (Bemba). Looking at the present formation shows that there is a street that separates the new township which begins across on ‘Gaza Street’ and beyond.
Many who live across to the newer side say the illicit activities in the area are not as much though walking through the other side, has its on risks.
The people of Chibolya especially the infamous section once believed they are living in another ‘country’ out of Zambia where own rules would be made.
This is no longer the case.
A Lusaka senior citizen recalls and shares a account of activities that might have contributed to the staining of Chibolya’s morals 1950s
Angela Banda’s story of Chibolya’s genesis leaves a question as to whether the kind of dubious lifestyle that has in the recent past made headlines would ever end despite efforts by the law enforcers to bring sanity in the area and Minister Kapyongo’s pronouncement.
Ms Banda witnessed the growth of Chibolya from early 1950 up to the current state and still leaves to tell the story as she would say:
“Chibolya Township was a very small settlement created by the municipal council then to accommodate low class general workers like cleaners.
The first houses for these people were  thatched and with  some made of iron sheets. A number of these statures are still standing to date. ”
As memory serves her well, she says even the issue of sanitation was at least manageable looking at the smaller number of people then living in the township.
“There were communal lavatories that had collecting buckets under such that everyday these buckets of waste would be empted in a truck that would eventually dispose the waste in at a sewer place Chimbotela.
The people tasked to do this job were called “Nyamazini,” she recalls.
Now, coming to the main missing piece of the puzzle of why this township has a breed of questionable character, it comes back to tie-up with the historical aspect told by Ms Banda.
She says in the 1950 up to the late 1960s after independence, less literate people would settle in Chibolya.
Women or wives of these Chibolya settlers were notorious brewers of prohibited local beer as a way of earning an income- an act that has continued to date.
This was clearly illegal but women had devised tricky methods of running away from trouble of the police who would pursue them on horse backs during routine cleanup of illicit alcohol like Kachasu, Seven Days and Mbamba.
Today’s Down Town Shopping Mall and Levy Park areas were thick bushes were women would hide this local brew from the police.
To some extent, this was the birth and growth of the battle between illicit acts and
the law.
These people who continued increasing in number led a lifestyle that automatically would not accommodate the few that managed to get an education thus migrating to other places like Kamwala or Kabwata; leaving the same levels of illiteracy in the township.
Civilisation was and is still almost blanketed from this township such that people who find it convenient to stay under these arrangements are those with poor educational backgrounds and no formal employment.
Looking at the illegal survival methods dating back from the early 50s as told by Ms Banda, it is safe to say that Chibolya residents would do less without these illicit acts.
Brain drain from this area has also highly contributed to the growth of illegal acts mainly perpetuated by those who have stayed back due to lack of education and formal employment.
It leaves one with a huge question as to whether this missing piece of the puzzle would be found with the continued growth of literacy among the majority of people who have come to call Chibolya home!
Their only way of survival is through illicit acts that would put them on the run from the law enforcers- it is historical and one wonders whether the move by Government will have a long-lasting solution to eradicate the notorious lifestyle.