CONGRATULATIONS Zambia. Yes, Zambians have every reason to celebrate the Golden Jubilee because 50 years of peace and stability in a continent still afflicted with ethnic violence, genocide, debilitating poverty and disease is no mean achievement.
Yes, rejoice again I say rejoice for what the Lord has done for us.
However, as the Golden Jubilee euphoria sweeps across the nation I cannot help but wonder what Zambia would have been like if former rebel Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith had not defied British colonial rule when he and his ‘boys’ in Salisbury decided to go it alone and proclaimed Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965, only a year after Zambia gained her independence from Britain on October 24, 1964?
Again I cannot help but wonder whether Zambia would have been any better off without Kenneth Kaunda in the saddle for almost 33 years? Would the country have per
formed much better if, for example, Mainza Chona, Simon Kapwepwe, Nalumino Mundia, Peter Matoka, or even Paramount Chief Undi of the Ngoni, had been at the helm as presidents?
You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know that Zambia would have been totally different under any of the men because they were individuals with different perspectives and ideological orientations and leadership styles.
However, be that as it may, this is not the time for finger-pointing. It is a time not only to jubilate but a time to plan for the next 50 years.
We all know that various mistakes were made. But the Englishman says ‘once bitten twice shy’; meaning we mustn’t allow the same mistakes to happen again.
That is the challenge as the nation embarks upon its new journey.
Our Chinese friends have a popular saying that ‘a journey of a thousand (1,000) miles tarts with the first step’ – and with Kaunda at the forefront, Zambians made that giant step toward 50 years of unmatched peace and tranquility that we are celebrating this year.
At the risk of being accused of being an apologist, I would stick my neck out and say that despite allegations of corruption and nepotism – by appointing men and women, whose ancestors arrived in Northern Rhodesia literally on a ship Malcolm X in his Address to the Grassroots’ refers to as the ‘May Flower’ – to various strategic posts – KK generally did a marvelous job before he was finally ousted from power by Frederick Chiluba in the watershed 1991 all-party elections.
Looking back in the distant past, I believe, too, that Dr Kaunda and his lieutenants (if they had remained as united as they were during the struggle to free the country from colonialism, racism and exploitation of man by man) would have done more to develop the national.
In fact KK would have done even much better if Ian Smith and his ‘band of robbers’ had not declared UDI, which had the effect of completely derailing the fledgling nation’s economic development plans.
Kaunda and his United National Independence Party (UNIP) inherited healthy coffers from the British colonialists, but instead of channeling such funds to financing development projects in all the nine provinces, including Barotseland (Western), government was forced to divert such resources on unplanned projects in order to survive UDI’s ripple effects on the country.
Before independence, Southern Rhodesia, then the white colonists’ Paradise, was the principal supplier of Northern Rhodesia’s consumer goods and raw materials that kept the wheels of the flourishing mining industry on the Copperbelt turning.
But thanks to Smith and his UDI, Kaunda and his team in Lusaka put on their ‘thinking caps’ as Zambia embarked upon a very ambitious import-substitution programme, which resulted in the creation of many parastatal companies to manufacture goods at home and end its dependence on foreign imports.
The construction of (with Chinese government help) the Tanzania- Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) was another significant milestone.
Similarly because of the friendly ties that existed between KK and Julius ‘Mwalimu’ Nyerere the Tanzania- Zambia Oil Pipeline (Tazama) from Dar es Salaam to Kapiri Mposhi, was born, thus giving land-locked Zambia direct access to the sea at Dar on the Indian Ocean coast in East Africa.
UDI proved to be a huge blessing in disguise for Zambia too in the sense that the laying of the oil pipeline led to the setting up (with Italian government help) of the Indeni Oil Refinery in Ndola, which created thousands of jobs for Zambian citizens and expatriates alike.
It is also worth remembering that before Independence, Zambia’s petroleum imports used to come by railway and road through Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) from either Beira in Mozambique or Durban/Port Elizabeth ports in South Africa, but these were often intercepted by the Smith regime especially after the imposition of mandatory economic sanctions on ‘rebel Rhodesia’ by the United Nations (UN).
It marked the end of the ‘Hell Run’ which was opened up to bring petrol from East Africa by road into Zambia.
Contingency measures taken in this fashion also led to the development of various infrastructures, including schools, especially secondary school across the country, hospitals, health centres – where none existed before – the University of Zambia (UNZA), University Teaching Hospital (UTH), Institutes of science and technology to produce graduates, doctors and nurses, professionals, artisans and fitters to serve the people and various industries that sprung up everywhere almost overnight.
The country experienced unprecedented boom, it must be said. But sadly, following the end of UDI and the subsequent independence of Zimbabwe (and even South Africa) Zambia’s sacrifices seem to have come to nought.
Zambia Railways (ZR) whose goods trains used to cross the Zambezi River via the Victoria Falls bridge en route to Rhodesia and South Africa, collapsed; the mines, the goose that lay the golden egg, too, started to die a painful death when Anglo American Corporation (AAC) and De Beers pulled out after the Mulungushi Economic Reforms of 1968.
A myriad of industries that survived on imported raw materials similarly collapsed overnight, throwing thousands of former bread winners out of employment and sparking widespread discontent. Ndola’s Industrial Sites suffered the most.
Dunlop closed down, Colgate Palmolive, Northland Engineering closed, for instance.
The place still looks desolate, crying for fresh investment.
It was portentous.
But God loves Zambia. In his wisdom He raised Chiluba and Levy Mwanawasa to take over the button from Kaunda.
Chiluba in particular will always be remembered for economically-empowering Zambians through his ‘Sitting tenant house purchase scheme’.
Though heavily criticised in certain quarters, it has triggered a homes’ construction revolution in Zambia – Zambians are decent people; they are building their own decent houses, which should hopefully in the longer term lead to the disappearance of the ugly informal settlements, which are an affront on human dignity.
As for stand-in president Rupiah Banda, he, too, deserves a pat on the back because he played his assigned part.
But the major accolades must go to Michael Chilufya Sata for what he has done with limited resources in three years that his Patriotic Front (PF) party has been in power.
You don’t agree? Take your own inventory, but one thing for sure is that God is doing a new thing in Zambia.
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. The wild animals honour me, the jackals and the owls, because I provide water in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland, to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise.” – Isaiah 43:18-21.
Praise God that after 50 years Zambians can proudly look back and say ‘yes we have made it’.
However, let us not rest on our laurels; work has just started; let’s diligently plan for the next 50 years for posterity’s sake.
Zambian land should not be sold willy-nilly to ‘fly by night’ investors seeking to take advantage of the poor and their local chiefs otherwise Zambia will sooner than later have a land problem worst than Zimbabwe’s and South Africa’s land crisis.
Corruption won’t do, only sound policies and sound leadership will be this generation’s enduring legacy.
In summing up I would like to play the devil’s advocate and once more and say that Smith and his UDI were a blessing in disguise for Zambia because at a time when some would have carved in, our founding fathers remain resolute and converted a minus into a plus, initiating home-grown commercial and industrial projects that have for the past 50 years sustained us an independent sovereign state and member of the Commonwealth, United Nations, African Union, Southern African Development Community, and COMESA, etc.