Working with his Excellency Rupiah Bwezani Banda outside State House has been, yet , another instructive curve in my life; exposing me to a whole new world of understanding African politics using the Zambian model.

This model now compels me to ask: Is this why some African presidents resist leaving office after losing elections?

Or is it mere coincidence that presidents Kenneth Kaunda, Frederick Chiluba and Rupiah Banda all did endure some nasty experience after leaving office as Zambian heads of State?
Well, this is a subject for another day.

For today, I want to say I cannot thank Mr Banda enough, for the opportunity he accorded me to serve him in the Office of the Fourth President as Deputy Administrative Assistant, just months after I had worked as Chief Policy Analyst for Press and Public Relations at State House during his tenure as our country’s fourth president.

It has been an eventful three years—from 2012—that has given me such a clear understanding of friendship that I am now able to categorise it into seven classes.
Yes, seven categories of friends.

Friends, it was once said, are the thermometers by which we gauge the temperature of our fortunes.

“When the sun shines on you, you see your friends,” wrote Marguerite Blessington in Commonplace Book.

I have observed this, right from the time Mr Banda lost the Zambian presidency to Mr Michael Chilufya Sata in the September 2011 election; when he had his immunity lifted; the time he was summoned by the Joint Government investigation team; the moment he began appearing in court; up to the day of his acquittal on 29th June, 2015.

There was also the time he decided to, again, throw his hat into the political ring; when the Supreme Court ruled that Nevers Mumba was to be the Movement for Multiparty Democracy candidate in the January 2015 presidential election; when he resolved to back the candidature of the Patriotic Front’s Edgar Lungu; up to the time Mr Lungu became Zambia’s sixth President.

I know what true friendship is!

When Mr Banda lost the 2011 elections, I remained at State House for two weeks, during which time I handed over office to George Chellah, the newly-appointed Special Assistant to the President (Press and Public Relations), and his deputy Amos Chanda.

After the handover, I was gone.

Almost suddenly, my mobile phone went literally off; no incoming calls!

Fast-forward to January 2015 when Mr Banda helped Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu assumed the title of His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zambia and Commander-in-Chief of the Zambian Armed Forces, my phone became busy again!
Rupiah Banda still had friends!

With time, I have learned to place friends into seven categories.
My time with Zambia’s former president has been a lesson on its own, and I will always cherish it.

In my own quiet moments with Mr Banda, during his trying period, I came to understand him more closely than I did when I worked with him at State House.

I came to know what a courageous person he was. He also taught me the spirit of humility, love and forgiveness.

He would often tell us that life was too short to be spent on harbouring vengeance; vengeance, he would explain, invariably devoured the one who sought to exercise it. 
I remember being with Mr Banda at his New Kasama home on the evening of 15th March, 2013 when his immunity was being lifted in Parliament. He watched all the proceedings live on television. Did we need to be the ones reassuring him?

No, it was he asking us to be strong in the wake of his lost immunity against prosecution.
There is a lot to write about, based on my experience with the former president, as he would, sometimes, ask me to travel with him in his official vehicle as we hit the road to Chipata.
Those times, I could see Rupiah Bwezani Banda the person; a loving father, uncle, brother-in-law, father-in-law and grandfather. Not Rupiah Banda the politician.

I also recall how, during our travels out of Zambia, Mr Banda would be denied his deserved diplomatic courtesies by our missions abroad, leading to a near-diplomatic contretemps with the Kenyan government at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in February 2013 when we arrived in Nairobi to observe that country’s presidential elections under the Carter Center.

Not to be forgotten, either, is the morning of 9th April, 2013 when we arrived at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport on our way to Nairobi to attend the inauguration ceremony of Kenya’s President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta.

Just before we could board the Kenya Airways plane, we suffered some humiliation when airport authorities informed us that they had been instructed by authorities “above” to not allow the former president leave the country.

This humiliation was to repeat itself three months later, on a trip to Johannesburg.
On a personal level, I, too, have endured some humiliation, particularly in the past one year.

Fortunately, I learned, during my time as a waiter and barman over 20 years ago, how, as Brian Tracey teaches in The Science of Self Confidence, to turn lemon into lemonade and to pluck success from the jaws of failure.

The details of my experience, both within and outside State House, and indeed the seven categories of friends, are part of the subjects in my upcoming book.

Perhaps, just as well, I did not have it published immediately just after the 2011 elections.
The four years of the post-Rupiah Banda presidency have added an even richer dimension to my book.

The autobiography also encompasses a number of profiles of individuals, many of them from humble backgrounds—whose trajectories have, over time, somewhat intertwined with mine.
Having come to the finishing line of another race in my life, it is now time to say farewell to the Office of the Fourth President and I wish to wholeheartedly thank all of you for the priceless support.

I have moved to Cabinet Office to open another chapter in my career.

Taking over from me is Mr Chibeza Mfuni, a former deputy ambassador to the People’s Republic of China.

I send my love and respect to you all.

Caution: The credibility quotient for this article is this: If it deals with politics it’s a fact; if it is dramatized it’s fiction; if it is outrageously unbelievable, it’s a fact. While the names of the characters are true, the impact of the story as it unfolds involves my imagination, deductions, and surmise.

The PF is a volcano brewing and readying for the inglorious eruption. In the magma chamber of Zambian politics, a sense of betrayal is simmering portentously. It has been since Edgar Lungu became president. Day after day, thick PF lava is flowing up the main vent and it’s a matter of time before it reaches the crater, and when it finally explodes, Lungu will be engulfed in it. Patriotic Front stalwarts will blame him for destroying the party of Michael Chilufya Sata.

Chishimba Kabwili will be on television: “The PF died when Lungu and his thugs hijacked the party of Michael Chilufya Sata at the November 2014 convention. Me, Dr. Guy Scott and others, refused to accept the bogus results, I actually was courageous enough to tell the nation that the election of Edgar Lungu was invalid and illegal. I warned Edgar not to abrogate the PF constitution, but he went ahead and did just that. Look where we are now.”

Interviewer: “And yet you Mr. Kabwili were quick to serve in his cabinet and defend him to the core. Why have you now turned against him?

Kambwili: “I had no choice. When a head of state appoints you, you’ve to oblige. But the truth is I was sad to see the party of Michael Chilufya Sata begin to disintegrate. The minute Edgar Lungu dismissed Guy Scott and became an ally of Rupiah Banda I knew there and then that we were headed for disaster. My most frustrating moment was when Dora Siliya left MMD and joined PF without first apologizing for insulting and demeaning the founder and architect of the party.”

Interviewer: “But Mr. Kambwili, if indeed you were saddened by president Lungu’s open support for Dora Siliya and other MMD defectors, why didn’t you resign in protest?”

Kambwili: “I didn’t want to fail the people of Zambia. When I was appointed Minister, I chose to serve my party, the people, and not Edgar Lungu. I did not want to be associated with him, because I knew right from the beginning that he was not a leader. He has no presidential acumen or qualities, and I might add no vision. That’s one of the reasons I took part in the elections. I was afraid Lungu would take us nowhere. I saw that in him each time he acted as president. He was a mere egg warmer. There was a huge difference between him and Guy Scott. Even me, had I become president or had Dr. Scott continued we would not be having this interview.”

The above hypothetical dialogue, although potentially delicate, does invoke the reality of Zambian politics in which back-stabbing, turn-coating, and Judas Iscariot tactics are modus operandi. I use Kambwili as a model because he has shown emotional devotion and acts simultaneously as a defender and preserver of what he calls “the party of Michael Chilufya Sata.” He is the erratic and maladroit devotee who despises Lungu inside and loves him outside.

It is not a travesty to claim that most PF zealots covertly accuse Lungu of hijacking their party, personalizing its apparatus and moving its centrifugal force to Chipata. They say he has snatched the PF away from the Bembas and handed it over to his Nyanja kith and kin. It is here that the rupture on the crater is about to erupt, ignited in part by Lungu’s dismal performance, the worst depreciation of the Kwacha, and the appointment of Dora Siliya as minister. Eleven months into Lungu’s reign, there are already surreptitious calls for a convention and whispers of “we want our party back!”

Jeremy Gould, Professor of Development and Cooperation at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland writes in his book Left Behind: Rural Zambia in the Third Republic that “tribalism is a register generally eschewed in public political discourse in Zambia” and that “ethnic tension is still considered an unmitigated virtue in each leader’s political legacy.” He adds: “ethnic identity and rivalry simmer ominously beneath the surface of Zambian politics.”

“It’s true,” a Zambian political pundit added. “Since the Tongas lost to the Bembas in the Kaunda-Nkumbula contest of January 1964, tribal affiliation continues to play a major role in national politics. When Frederick Chiluba became president the MMD was more assertive on the copperbelt and in Northern and Luapula provinces. When Rupiah Banda became president MMD power-base moved to the east.”

And according to information in the book Zambia: Building Prosperity from Resource Wealth edited by Christopher Adam, Michael Gondwe, and Paul Collier, when Sata founded PF in 2001, he was dependent to a large extent on the people of his homeland. “The PF was understood as an essentially Bemba party.”

Like Chiluba and Banda, Sata too was a tribalist. It is the reason he designed a party logo of a boat with the Bemba words “pabwato” (dugout canoe) as the party’s slogan. He was appeasing the subjects of Chitimukulu and Mwata Kazembe.

“That’s without doubt,” said the Zambian pundit. “Sata knew that voting was heavily determined by tribal loyalties. In other words, he was aware that tribalism plays a major role in the election of a leader. In fact it was Sata who in 2006 reinjected tribalist language in Zambian politics when he accused the United Democratic Alliance and the MMD of being biased against the Bemba.”

When Sata become president the tribalist assertion became clear. He appointed Bembas in the key ministries of Finance (Alexander Chikwanda), Defence (Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba), Foreign Affairs (Chishimba Kabwili), Health (Joseph Kasonde), and Home affairs (Kennedy Sakei). Nepotism manifested itself in government, diplomatic, and parastatal appointments, just like it did in the Banda regime. Relatives and underqualified tribes-mates found their way to embassies around the world.

Moreover, Sata allocated the bulk of government disbursement for roads, universities, and other social structures to Northern and Luapula provinces, causing Itezhi-Tezhi District Commissioner Roy Nangalelwa to accuse him of being a tribalist “who only favors and takes development to provinces occupied by the Bembas.”

Nangalelwa’s remarks did not deter Sata. By concentrating on Bembaland he was affirming his large power and making the Bembas more politically relevant. But things would happen quickly. As is the case in most personal-cum-cadre parties, Sata’s sudden departure caught many of his beneficiaries off guard and toppled the PF into chaos.

The PF Bemba elite of Geoffrey Mwamba, Miles Sampa, Mulenga Sata, Chishimba Kambwili, and Christine Kaseba, were hoping a successor among them would emerge. Lungu detected a loophole. Taking advantage of the dust cloud that shrouded the party, he recognized his opportunity. Knowing he would garner little support from the Bemba PF power circle, he turned to the East for help and found it in Rupiah Banda, the man who was still popular among his eastern vassals. Before the dust could settle, Lungu was standing on the stairs of the Supreme Court, the Holy Bible in hand.
Since he became president, Lungu too has shown infallible tribalist symptoms. It is because of him that Sata’s arch-rival Rupiah Banda has stealthily weaved his name into the fabric of the PF party. Together, Lungu and Banda are working to reduce the Bemba’s strong hold of the PF by dismantling its one-sided benefaction complex. So far they are on their way to dexterously moving the PF party to the east.

“Sata must be turning in his grave!” one of the PF zealots exclaimed. “How can we allow Banda of all the people to hijack our party? How? Can someone please tell me? This is a man who smeared and trashed our leader.” He went into a rant: “How can we sit back and allow Dora Siliya to become minister. How about us who sacrificed our lives, worked day and night to make sure PF won? He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

The zealots around him exclaimed: “We want Sata’s PF back!”

Please Note: The objective of this article is to show that Zambia is far from being tribalism free; that tribalism and nepotism are Zambia’s Achilles’ heel—a drawback in spite of our cultural co-existence. Tribalism and nepotism retard our development, they are the reason we are at the bottom of the totem pole, barely hanging in there. We need to find a quick way of rising above the fray.

By Field Ruwe
Field Ruwe is a US-based Zambian media practitioner, historian, author, and a doctoral candidate. Learn more about him on his website www.aruwebooks.com. On it you shall access his autobiography, articles, and books. Contact him, blog, or join in the debate. ©Ruwe2012.