•Acting President Guy Scott, First Lady Christine Kaseba with senior Government officials at Mulungushi International Conference centre.

By STEPHEN KAPAMBWE –
WHEN the presidential Challenger plane touched down at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport around 10:15 hours on Saturday morning, President Michael Sata was not on it.
The remains of Mr Sata, who died in London on the night of October 28, 2014, were aboard a special aircraft that trailed the Challenger, touching down at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport (KKIA) at 10:38 hours after being shadowed by two Zambia Air Force (ZAF) fighter jets.
The arrival of the special aeroplane was further confirmation of what every Zambian had dreaded: That the nation had once more lost a sitting President.
Prior to these events, the death of Mr Sata was received with shock.
Nervousness and uncertainty set in as people began wondering what would happen next.
Those in the business world went into overdrive, keeping a tab on the trading value of the Kwacha against major international convertible currencies like the American dollar, the euro, the British pound and South African rand.
The politically-minded wondered what was required in the Constitution in such eventualities, the most pressing question being who was going to stand in during the interim period as the country prepared for the inevitable presidential by-election?
The answer of whether or not chaos would follow came from a series of timely events that the Government initiated immediately news filtered through that the President had died.
The morning of October 29 saw the head of the civil service, that is, Secretary to the Cabinet Roland Msiska, announcing to the nation that President Sata had died in London.
The Government also moved to curb speculation on what the way forward would be by quickly announcing that Vice-President Guy Scott would be Acting President to take the country through the transition period.
Dr Scott struck a reconciliatory code at a Press briefing on Friday when he announced a partial funeral programme for the late President Sata.
“In particular, all political parties in the opposition are mostly warmly expected to attend (the arrival of Mr Sata’s body at KKIA). My own party, the Patriotic Front (PF) will embrace them (the opposition) as fellow mourners of the leader of our nation,” he said.
PF Secretary General Edgar Lungu, who is also Defence minister, laid out the party position on the matter, appealing to all party functionaries and cadres to remain calm and dignified as the nation grieved in the wake of President Sata’s demise.
These events, followed by subsequent updates by Acting President Dr Scott, Dr Misiska, Mr Lungu and Mr Sata’s family to keep the nation informed at all times sent a strong message across the country as well as to the outside world that the Government was intact and all State systems, especially the Constitution and the security wings, were fully operational.
In all this, the Zambian people united as one people and thronged KKIA on Saturday to mourn, comfort the grieving family and invoke God in prayer.
From Government leaders to opposition party presidents, former Republican presidents Kenneth Kaunda and Rupiah Banda, veteran freedom fighters, students, political party cadres and the ordinary man on the street flocked to the airport to receive President Sata’s body.
The superficial differences separating the nation had ceased to be.
There was no longer UPND, UNIP, PF or NAREP. There was no longer Catholic Church, or United Church of Zambia (UCZ), Apostolic Church or Seventh Day Adventist Church.
All differences had melted away as people united in the outpouring of grief.
Chief Government spokesperson Joseph Katema said everything had been put in place for the funeral of Mr Sata. He said all Government wings were prepared to ensure all arrangements and procedures were in place for the funeral.
He appealed to the general populace to mourn with dignity.
PF media director Brian Hapunda called on all members of the party to refrain from any acts of confusion.
He warned that the PF would disown party cadres or officials causing confusion, especially during the mourning period.
He appealed to all party members to rally behind Acting President Dr Scott, the Government as well as the PF leadership.
Mongu Mayor Bright Tombi said development programmes that had been seen in the last three years under President Sata in Mongu in particular and Western Province in general had not happened in the previous 27 years.
He said it was now that people were beginning to understand why President Sata fought to get to the presidency.
“The change we have seen in the last three years had not taken place in the previous 27 years before Mr Sata became president, and today, I can proudly say that I am one of the councillors who won elections in Mongu at a time when the PF was not known in Western Province,” he said.
And President Sata’s son Mulenga, recounted his father’s last moments in an interview with the national television broadcaster, ZNBC.
“Prior to that he had been resting back at the hotel and the First Lady and all of us, his nieces and nephews, we were by his side.
“He started having difficulties breathing. Then he had a breathing crisis and we took him to the intensive care unit (ICU),” he said.
Mr Sata, who is the mayor of Lusaka, said what transpired in the ICU was only privy to the doctors who eventually broke the news to the family that they had failed to resuscitate President Sata.
He said although the death of President Sata deeply shocked the family, such was life.
He said once the doctors communicated the death of President Sata to the family, there was no question of delaying the information and the Cabinet office was immediately informed as well as the office of the Vice-President so that normal protocol could be followed.
Mr Sata said the death of his father was a devastating blow that would take the family time to absorb.
However, he said the family was also aware that President Sata was a relative, an uncle, and a grandfather to many people and the family realised that many other people were equally mourning the President.
“As we go through this process we will begin to come to terms with it.
We urge our people to be strong, focused and calm. This is not the time to be overly emotional, but to do things in a calm manner,” Mr Sata said.
Asked if the family would have wanted the body of President Sata to be taken to provincial centres so that people outside Lusaka could pay their last respects, Mr Sata declined, saying the President had led a simple life.
He said President Sata would have wanted his funeral to be kept as simple as possible.
The arrival of the body of the late Mr Sata was given full military honours as ZAF jets performed a fly past amid a sombre mood that enveloped the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport.
As the body left the airport on its final journey to Mulungushi International Conference Centre, members of the public lined up on both sides of the Great East Road to pay their respects to a man they had not thought would die midway his presidential term.
People wailed openly, took pictures and filmed the procession on their cell phones, tablets and iPads.
Some waved chitenge wrappers as the gun carriage escorted by armoured personnel carriers, police, military units and ZAF helicopters was driven past, with the elderly women shaking their heads in total disbelief.
They lined up all the way to Mulungushi International Conference Centre entrance where the body of President Sata was taken before body viewing that was scheduled to run from Sunday.
So far, the people of Zambia have done what they do best, they have remained united and kept the peace.
This is not something they are doing for the first time.
They did it in 1993 when the entire Zambia national soccer team perished in a plane crash off the cost of Gabon.
The nation did not just mourn in peace. It reconstituted a new team that went on to do great exploits as though the country had not even lost a superior crop of footballers.
It happened again in 2008 when the country lost its first sitting president in Dr Levy Patrick Mwanawasa who died in a Paris hospital in France after collapsing at an African Union (AU) conference.
It happened yet again when former Republican president Frederick Chiluba died on June 18, 2011 at his home in Lusaka.
This time it is yet another sitting President.
But the people of Zambia have come down this road before and they have learned to live through it as former Republic president Rupiah Banda said when he was interviewed by the BBC in Lusaka.
When the international media rushed to publicise the appointment of Dr Scott – a white man of Scottish descent – as acting president after Mr Sata’s death, the people of Zambia saw nothing peculiar in that.
The country had the likes of Simon Zukas, Dipak Patel, Arkbar Patel and others not only leading political parties but occupying Cabinet positions in various Governments.
Dr Scott himself had not fallen from the sky.
He is a man local people are familiar with, having reached every corner of Zambia during his campaigns that saw PF dislodge the former ruling party, MMD, from power in 2011.
He stood in Lusaka Central Constituency and won elections as the area MP, a position he still holds even now.
He has been by President Sata ever since.
What then should prevent him from being appointed Acting President if he meets the necessary qualifications?
After 50 years of independence, Zambia has gone colour-blind even though use of the colour bar by the colonialists led to the liberation struggle.
Zambia is a nation of diversity in politics, religion as well as cultural identities and those getting into leadership need to satisfy well-known requirements that are laid down for all to follow.
Colour is not one of them.
So as it stands, Dr Scott goes into history as having been one of those that have served Zambia in the presidency.
In the meantime, calm remains and key institutions like the Bank of Zambia (BoZ) have continued to reassure players in the economy that there is no cause to panic.
Although the local currency depreciated slightly at the breaking of news of President Sata’s death last Friday, BoZ Governor Michael Gondwe has assured the nation that the economy is resilient and fundamentally strong enough to absorb the shocks that would result from the passing of Mr Sata.