Perusing my records this week I came across two items that rekindled memories of what happened in the year 2005 when former president Levy Mwanawasa addressed Zambian expatriates working in Botswana at the Zambian High Commissioner’s residence in Gaborone – and a story about what turned out to be his last trip outside Zambia some three years later.
I was among hundreds of Zambians who flocked to that meeting. If my memory serves me right, others in attendance were Dr Philip Mwala (who relocated to Cape Town some three years ago), then Gaborone city engineer and former Mansa Batteries managing director Dickson Kangwa, ex-Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (Zesco) and Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) managing director John Kaluzi, former Ndola City Council (NCC) engineer Charles Mwansa, Lusaka city quantity surveyor Chris Nawa and his wife Pauline and Government printer, Garry Siwila and his wife Beatrice.
Dr Mwanawasa, who was on his first state visit to Botswana, urged Zambians in the Diaspora to return home and help reconstruct the country, promising, among other things, that his administration would in due course write a people-driven Constitution and intensify its fight against corruption; as evidenced by a string of charges slapped on his predecessor, Frederick Chiluba, who had his immunity against prosecution lifted.
As regards the economy, Dr Mwanawasa told his audience that the country’s economy was on the road to recovery after many years in the doldrums. He said new mines were being opened up, particularly in the North-Western Province, which was why his Government was planning to construct a dual carriage way from Chingola to Solwezi, the provincial capital – and all the way to the reopened Kansanshi Mine.
He also highlighted that the province was rich in natural resources and its tourism potential was yet to be exploited.
The Copperbelt Province, renowned worldwide as the cornerstone of the country’s economy, was gradually regaining its lost momentum as new investors had come in and bought former Roan Antelope Copper Mine in Luanshya, for instance. He revealed that after months of much uncertainty and mounting frustrations among affected employees, the new owners had managed to pay all retrenched workers their terminal benefits.
Dr Mwanawasa, who once served as Solicitor General (SG) in the twilight of the UNIP administration, however, had some bad news for former State-owned UBZ and Contract Haulage employees, for example. He said those who had not claimed and received their benefits in the last 10 years had virtually lost out because the law says ‘you can claim only within six years’.
During question time, the former Head of State, who was probably trying to seek ‘a second sobering thought’ – as the subject had created much euphoria in the country then – turned to his Agriculture and Cooperative minister, the late Mundia Sikatana (a lawyer and former University of Zambia graduate like Dr Mwanawasa himself) to throw some light on reports that there were oil and diamond deposits in Western Province.
I remember Sikatana, a quick-witted man, rose to his feet when called upon by his boss and, with a broad smile stated amid laughter from the audience that, “The Lozis have from time immemorial believed that there is oil in the Western Province.”
However, President Mwanawasa did indicate in his address that exploration was ongoing, adding  that  many people in the region believed that if there ‘is oil in neighbouring Angola, while Namibia (like Botswana) had diamonds, why not in Zambia (?) because we are all (including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on the same geological formation’.
Taking up the cue again, Mr Sikatana expressed concern at the mushrooming of ‘lodges’ in Zambia, saying some Zambians, much to the fury and embarrassment of Government, were ‘putting up lodges – some of them right on the banks of the Zambezi River – without due process of the law.
Even more corrosively, such lodges had become white elephants as no tourists used them (at the time). He vowed Government would investigate before taking appropriate remedial measures.
And after touring Jwaneng Diamond Mine (located in south-western Botswana), which is a joint business venture between the Botswana government and De Beers of South Africa, Dr Mwanawasa briefed Zambian community that Zambia’s emerald industry looked set for a major overhaul. He indicated that the country would adopt similar tough security measures, which Botswana uses to safeguard her ‘precious diamonds’, the country’s principal foreign exchange earner.
He said the Zambian Government would restrict entry to all emerald mining areas on the Copperbelt (I wonder if this has been done by now?). The late Head of State also disclosed that Anglo American Corporation (ACC) and De Beers’ chief Harry Openheimer, whose family previously controlled the mines in Zambia before nationalisation by the UNIP administration in the 1970s, had shown interest in the emerald sector and would be returning to invest in Zambia once again.
As a result, Dr Mwanawasa said, aliens mining the precious stones illegally in Chief Nkana’s area and elsewhere in the province would be ‘flushed out and deported’.
In Botswana no one is allowed to enter Jwaneng Diamond Mine and Orapa Diamond Mine (in Botswana’s Central District and north of Serowe) or visit their relatives in mine townships without special permits that must be obtained well in advance.
In fact, it is a criminal offence for citizens and non-citizens alike to deal in diamonds in Botswana.
A Zambian was at the time serving a two-year prison term with hard labour after he was found in possession of a rough diamond obtained from a neighbouring country (allegedly DRC) but which was passed on  to him by an acquaintance.
On the agricultural sector, Dr Mwanawasa informed his audience that included former Zambian High Commissioner to Botswana and later minister in the Presidency at State House Cecil Homes (who was replaced by Mr Mwamutenta Musakabantu ahead of the 2006 general elections) that many White Zimbabwean farmers had settled in Zambia after President Robert Mugabe’s controversial 2000 land redistribution programme, under which former white-owned farmlands were repossessed by the ZANU-PF government and given to previously dispossessed Blacks.
He explained that the farmers were at the time growing mainly tobacco, which had become an important foreign exchange earner for Zambia. As a result, the country was contemplating setting up a tobacco processing facility as the country was then losing revenue, importing cigarettes at ‘six times the price of raw tobacco exports’.
Zambia was then in the grip of a devastating drought, similar to the one it is currently experiencing, but he assured everyone that Zambia was steadily marching towards food self-sufficiency. Dr Mwanawasa noted that the country was already exporting grain, especially maize, to some of her Southern African Development Community (SADC) neighbouring countries.
I remember the fact that former Ndola-based Zambia Insurance Brokers’ intrepid insurance broker Bright Nyirenda gave a moving vote of thanks, praising Dr Mwanawasa for his stance on various issues, including corruption involving top government operatives; HIV/AIDS; antiretroviral drugs distribution to the disadvantaged communities; and Zambian ‘economic refugees’ who, he said, deserved a better deal upon their return from ‘self-imposed exile.’
Nyirenda was alluding to Dr Mwanawasa’s appeal (which President Michael Chilufya Sata also issued fours later when he addressed the Zambian community during his State visit to Botswana in March 2012), admonishing ‘prodigal sons’ to return home and apply for land. The president assured that land would be allocated to any applicant, provided the application was for land ‘outside Lusaka’ because ‘Lusaka has run out of land’.
At the end of meeting, Dr Mwanawasa, whom I met face-to-face in Lusaka at his office in Mukuba Pension Fund House in 1997 (he had by then resigned as President Chiluba’s Vice President), seemingly broke protocol at the Gaborone meeting because when he spotted me among the crowd, he came over to where I was standing and remarked jokingly,” When are you coming back home? You look all right, but some of your old friends (back home) look finished’.
It was, indeed, a light moment for both of us. We looked at each other – a former private lawyer inadvertently meeting with one of his old Ndola clients in foreign territory – and laughed together; as he and his retinue retreated into the High Commissioner’s residence.
That incident was particularly memorable for me who will never stop to wonder at what God can do – raising a humble soft-spoken child (who, with other disadvantage African children, in the 1950s played football on the dusty fields of various African townships) to a towering Head of State.
But what we all did not know or even suspect at the time was that the Giver of life had His own plans for His beloved son, called Levy Patrick Mwanawasa, SC.
For soon the nation and the international community woke up to the shattering news that Dr Mwanawasa was gravelly ill after he suffered a stroke while attending a special African Union (AU) Heads of State Summit in Egypt.
A special Zambia News and Information Services (ZANIS) dispatch of Jul 1, 2008, headlined, ‘Levy evacuated to France for specialist treatment’ said, and I quote:
“President Levy Mwanawasa has been evacuated to Paris, France, for further specialist medical treatment.
Vice President Rupiah Banda disclosed the development to ZANIS in a Press statement last evening.
Mr Banda said President Mwanawasa was seen off by Egyptian Minister of Health Dr H Elgabaly, Zambia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Kabinga Pande, Finance Minister Ng’andu Magande, Tourism Minister Michael Kaingu (now Education minister), Local Government and Housing Minister, Sylvia Masebo.
Others included Justice Minister George Kunda (who later became Vice President to Mr Banda) and Lusaka Province Minister, Lameck Mangani.
Dr Mwanawasa was accompanied by First Lady Maureen Mwanawasa, his daughter Chipo, Health Minister Dr Brian Chituwo and State House Minister for Presidential Affairs, Cecil Homes.”
Calming the nerves of a shocked nation, Mr Banda however assured everyone that Dr Mwanawasa’s condition still remained stable.
Dr Mwanawasa on Sunday suffered a stroke in Egypt where he was attending the two-day 11th Africa Union (AU) Heads of State and Government summit that closed today (July 1, 2008).
He was hospitalised in El Sheikh International Hospital were he was being attended to by doctors.
Mr Banda said Egyptian president Hosni Mubaraki, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kitwete, Ghanaian President John Kufuor, Malawi’s Dr Bingu Wa Mutharika (late) and Namibia’s Hifikepunye Pohamba visited Dr Mwanawasa in hospital.
Meanwhile, Mr Banda said government has continued to receive several messages wishing Dr Mwanawasa a speedy recovery from various heads of state and government.
And the Bishops Fellowship of Lusaka will tomorrow hold a national prayer meeting for President Levy Mwanawasa’s healing.
The Bishops said in a Press statement in Lusaka today that the prayer meeting will be held at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross at 14 hours.
The Bishops are urging all Christians and members of the public to attend the prayer meeting to pray for president Mwanawasa who is hospitalised in Egypt.
And the MMD in Northern Province have engaged in prayers for the quick recovery of President Levy Mwanawasa who suffered a stroke in Egypt on Sunday.
MMD provincial vice secretary Jairus Simunyola made the disclosure in a press statement released to ZANIS in Kasama.
He said the party in the province had received the illness of President Mwanawasa with great shock and sadness.
But Dr Mwanawasa died a few days in a Paris military hospital, three days before he was to celebrate his 60th birthday.
Before this tragedy Dr Mwanawasa had flown into Gaborone in his capacity as Chairman of the 15-nation SADC bloc to inspect the new site where the new SADC Headquarters has been constructed in the Gaborone Central Business District (CBD) off Nelson Mandela and Willie Sebone roads and near the Mass Media Complex.
Upon learning that my former legal counsel-friend-turned-Head of State and SADC ‘boss’ was – as it were – in town for the second time, I rounded up a few ‘Doubting Thomases’ at the Information Department (where I had worked for almost a decade) to come with me so they could ‘see it all’ for themselves that, indeed, Dr Mwanawasa and I knew each other very well (a symbiotic relationship I often ‘flaunted’ if only to silence those who sought to engage me over such point-scoring encounters).
But to my disappointment (and that of my colleagues who always asked for proof) because when we got to the site, we were told the Zambian leader had flown back to Lusaka immediately after attending the brief ceremony as he had come to Gaborone only for a few hours.
Now almost seven years ago memories of that 2005 meeting outside the Zambian High Commissioner’s residence and the missed opportunity to meet with him for a second time in Gaborone three years later race in my mind every time I look back to those two unforgettable events.
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