Nevers Mumba is Positioning Himself to Replace Dr Canicious Banda in UPND

By Sunday Chanda

Mr. Nevers Mumba’s name will remain associated with betraying the people who trust him and abandoning those who serve him.

Mr. Nevers Mumba misleads unsuspecting people with his demeanour that masks a highly deceitful character who uses religion to bulldoze his way to the top. This is a man who abandoned his flock to join politics.

The only way Nevers Mumba can survive the 5 years is by playing the lapdog to both Hakainde Hichilema (HH) and Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba (GBM). This man deserves more sympathy than anger because the man is so desperate to survive.

He is in survival mode not that he is even loyal to HH or GBM. Nevers Mumba is not loyal to anybody but himself and his history attests to this fact. One does not need to be a rocket scientist to know that Nevers Mumba has not abandoned his Presidential ambitions. His plan is to infiltrate UPND, replace Dr. Canicius Banda (HH is ready to do this in an effort to weaken GBM who seems himself as the Bemba strongman in UPND), get to the party Presidency in order to contest the 2021 elections with a named MP from Southern Province as his running mate.

In responding to Mr. Nevers Mumba’s statement, it is important to let him know that neither HH nor GBM trusts him. If he is in doubt, on 17th October 2012, HH said “Nevers Mumba cannot not be trusted; he can resign if given a position by Sata”.

Addressing a meeting on 17th October 2012, HH charged that his party could not work with the MMD because its leader Nevers Mumba could not be trusted. “Mumba was known of a chain of resignations in the past which were necessitated by his appointments to various positions in Government.

He was National Christian Coalition leader, but he abandoned the party to take up the vice Presidency. How can we work with a person who dumped his own, who accepted a diplomatic job at the expense of the Reform Party”, HH said. If he’s in doubt, we challenge Nevers Mumba to ask HH to swallow these words!

Mr. Mumba’s religious and political journey has been full of inconsistencies and inaccuracies. It is a fact that he is a failed pastor and politician and this we say without any malice at all. His belief that he was born to become President of Zambia is the greatest disease he suffers from.

Mr. Mumba should be the last person to make himself judge in the “Court of Political morality” because he is devoid of it. He has mastered and practiced both political prostitution and political crosstitution. For those who may not know, here is a man who knows no loyalty:

1. When late President Frederick Chiluba ascended to power, he gave a lot of visibility to Pentecostal Pastors and amongst the beneficiaries was Mr. Nevers Mumba who was also honoured with a diplomatic passport. Little did President Chiluba know that Mr. Nevers Mumba’s Zambia Shall Be Saved was slowly departing from ecclesiastical preachings by harping on political subjects from time to time. He finally formed National Christian Coalition (NCC) to push for political reforms in Zambia and added that NCC was going to take on President Chiluba’s government. President Chiluba felt betrayed that a brother in Christ and pastor he had embraced and honoured could turn around to stab him in the back. Then Vice President Brig. Gen Godfrey Miyanda appeared on Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) to dismiss NCC as a political party. On the same ZNBC Program, Brig. Gen Miyanda said he had read the NCC constitution and that it was a political party; Nevers Mumba was exposed! NCC faced a lot of opposition and resistance from his fellow members of the clergy and Christians he expected would follow him blindly.

2. After this exposure, Mr. Nevers Mumba changed National Christian Coalition (NCC) to National Citizen’s Coalition (NCC), with his Church Cell leaders becoming his bodyguards. This was also at the height of the infamous house in Riverside which he later sold off after much controversy. To this day no one knows whether the poor old white widow gave the house to him as a person or Victory Bible Church. Standing on the NCC ticket, he contested the Parliamentary and Presidential Elections of 2001 and lost terribly; He was bruised, his reputation stained and former confidants deserting him because of his treachery!

3. Mr. Nevers Mumba was made spokesperson of the 2001 election petitioners, which included UPND and PF. Little did his colleagues realise that he was sneaking into State House to cut political deals behind their backs. Before long, he dumped them, auctioned NCC, joined MMD and become late President Levy Mwanawasa’s Vice President. Before long, there were stories of him undermining his appointing authority! As Vice President, Zambians can only remember him at Alpha Bar in Northmead Lusaka counselling prostitutes and underage patrons in the middle of the night!

4. In his quest to outshine his master, Nevers Mumba was fired by President Mwanawasa after he addressed a Press Conference when his boss was out of the country and alleged that some individuals from DRC were fuelling political tension in Zambia. This was an embarrassing moment for the Head of State who apologised to his DRC Counterpart President Joseph Kabila. On arrival at Lusaka International Airport as it was known then, President Mwanawasa addressed the matter and stated that his Vice President had embarrassed him. Every reasonable Zambian expected Mr. Nevers Mumba would keep his cool but that was not to be. No sooner had late President Mwanawasa left the Airport did Mr. Nevers Mumba inform the nation that he did not regret his remarks against DRC; the following morning he was fired with late President Mwanawasa saying “if he does not regret saying what he said about DRC, then I regret having appointed him as Vice President. His nomination as MP is revoked and I have fired him as my Vice President with immediate effect!”

5. After being fired as Vice President, as if to confirm what many people knew that he was undermining late President Mwanawasa, Mr. Nevers Mumba informed the nation that he would challenge late President Mwanawasa at the MMD Convention. Then MMD National Secretary Vernon Mwaanga suspended Nevers Mumba and told the nation that “there exists an unwritten rule in politics that you do not challenge an incumbent”. Mr. Nevers Mumba was later expelled from the MMD.

6. He went on to form the Reform Party (RP) talks of “merging” with late BY Mwila’s ZRP started. It was agreed that the “merger” would have one President and a convention was held in Kabwe where Nevers Mumba lost to the late BY Mwila. No sooner had he lost the election than he denounced the result and the merger disintegrated;

7. Upon losing to BY Mwila, Mr. Nevers Mumba as Reform Party leader began making frantic efforts to apologise to late President Mwanawasa in the hope of being re-admitted into the MMD. There was resistance and could not yield the desired success. It was only after late President Mwanawasa died that Mr. Nevers Mumba jumped on the bandwagon to endorse former President Rupiah Banda, a man he hates and vilifies today. After President Banda won the election, he was gracious enough to give him a diplomatic job in Canada as Zambia’s High Commission;

8. After MMD lost power to PF, Mr. Nevers Mumba sounded sympathetic to the PF but he was a known opportunist. There are so many notables that Mr. Nevers Mumba called asking them to persuade late President Michael Sata to keep him as Zambia’s High Commissioner to Canada but these cries fell on deaf ears as reports of financial misappropriation at the Mission in Ottawa had reached the President’s ears;

9. Mr. Nevers Mumba still has cases before the Courts of law including the misappropriation of funds at the Zambian Mission in Canada. Since the matter is before the Courts, we shall not go into details except to say that such issues must never be identified with a man who preaches integrity and morality;

10. After his recall, he was crowned as MMD President by those who never knew him and who believed he had what it took to fight late President Sata. After President Sata’s death, the support from former President Banda and President Lungu’s subsequent winning the 2015, Mr. Nevers Mumba’s mission became that of displacing the former President. He was angry with former PF Secretary General and now Defence Minister Davies Chama who he blamed for the “failed alliance”. With the coming of a new constitution, Mr. Nevers Mumba saw himself as President Lungu’s natural running mate. He was disappointed that his running mate fantasy could not materialise. Interestingly it was the very people that crowned him MMD President who made sure he was booted out of the leadership seat. The “greatest sin” if any that President Lungu has committed to Nevers Mumba is not to grant his wishes of running mate and shunning former President Banda. Mr. Nevers Mumba knows that MMD is in Hon Felix Mutati’s hands but he needs to survive, hence his going to the desperate UPND.

11. Under the UPND, both Nevers Mumba and Hakainde Hichilema know that there is nothing like an alliance with MMD. The scheme is to kick out Mr. Canicius Banda and have him replaced with Nevers Mumba. Nevers Mumba will be used as GBM’s checkmate even as HH looks at 2021. In this regard, Nevers Mumba is doing all he can to prove himself worthy of the appointment to Hichilema. He can even insult President Lungu if that is what it is going to take.

In responding to some of Mr. Mumba’s hallucinations, it must be stated that:

1. The whole idea of an ALLIANCE is a figment of his imagination and that of HH. What is there is that Nevers Mumba is being positioned to replace Canicius Banda; this is because Nevers Mumba is ready to deceptively sing the “Wamuyaya” Song for HH unlike Canicius Banda who was able to talk about the Convention. It is also shocking that other UPND zealots can entertain a ridiculous and archaic rule as article 70 of the UPND constitution which dignifies the dictatorial “indefinite clause” which technically makes HH UPND’s Life President since he is losing again in 2021;

2. We do not need to remind Mr. Nevers Mumba that President Lungu is the legitimate President of the Republic of Zambia. It is therefore irresponsible and careless for Mr. Nevers Mumba to insinuate that Zambia has no President. It is clear to see that he desires for anarchy to reign in Zambia. He must be told that his excitement and ridicule for a democratically-elected President will soon land him into deep waters because Zambia is not a country of men but of laws. In his quest to appear relevant to Hakainde Hichilema, Nevers Mumba is saying in a flowery way that there is going to be an uprising in Zambia and that is treasonous. If his paymasters are not advising him, he will soon cross the line and the long arm of the law will deal with him. It must be noted that there is a huge difference between being courageous and being dim-witted.

3. Mr. Nevers Mumba’s ignorance is appalling to say the least. We challenge him to show Zambians which law they are basing their declaration of an official dispute with the PF and President Edgar Lungu’s election? Nevers Mumba does not know the difference between collective bargaining where you declare an official dispute and elections where there is an automatic winner and the aggrieved party has recourse at course where a matter can be heard and thrown out or indeed disqualified on effluxion of time as the case was with the UPND petition. There is no such a thing as declaring a dispute in politics unless by declaring a dispute the UPND through Nevers Mumba is telling Zambians that they are ready for anarchy and lawlessness. While Nevers Mumba speaks of non-violence in his statement, his speech and that of his cohorts is that of violence against a legitimate Government of the people.

Throughout his life, Nevers Mumba seems not to think twice on who he betrays. His list of betrayal is long and wide. He betrayed late President Chiluba, late President Mwanawasa and former President Banda, among others. If Mr. Nevers Mumba could betray the three Presidents, who is HH? So when he insults President Lungu, it does not come as a surprise because that is his nature. But the words of scripture in Matthew 23:27, apply to Mr. Nevers Mumba when they say: “You hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which looks beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean”.

Zambians remember him as a flip-flop when before he joined politics; Nevers Mumba appeared on ZNBC’s Frank Talk Show and was asked by Frank Mutubila “Would you one day join politics?” His answer was “No, it would be a demotion to give up my Godly position to serve in Government”.

Today, he is hungry and angry because for all the years he has been in public life, he had needed a lifeline. He is consistent with inconsistencies. His continued rantings must therefore be dismissed with the contempt they deserve.