By Elias Munshya President Lungu’s trip to the Copperbelt this last weekend did not just end up spreading COVID-19 to the innocent masses that attended his rallies. Still, it was also the opportunity for the President to say the darndest things. If the President and his handlers want us to accord some respect to his high office, he must behave
By Elias Munshya President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa (Zambian President from 2002 to 2008) was a controversial figure. Without a doubt, he has gone into history as one of the most controversial presidents. Several things about Mwanawasa are contentious. Just how he was called from political retirement to become Chiluba’s preferred MMD presidential candidate ruffled many feathers within the MMD in
by Elias Munshya When I say that His Excellency, the President of our Republic, is spreading the COVID-19 virus, I do not mean that he has the virus. What I mean is that his current travel schedules expose the people of Zambia in remote areas to COVID-19. The President does not travel alone. Even if the President himself has done
E. Munshya, LLM. MBA, M.DIV. We really do not know all the facts surrounding Mr. Mumba Yachi’s arrest. From the public domain, we understand that he has been arrested for obtaining a Zambian passport and identity documents on false pretences. He on the other hand, it is being reported, asserts that he is a descendant of Lumpa exiles who had
E. Munshya, LLM, MBA, M.DIV. In Chiwempala It was a bright sunny Chiwempala morning in 1992. Some looked extremely old, but they all appeared exhausted. I cannot quite remember seeing the young or the children among them. I can vividly remember the women, the old women. Their wrinkled faces with pleasantly wrapped ifitambala on their heads. I can’t quite recall
By E. Munshya, LLM, MBA, MDIV. There is no better way to win an election than to win an election. For those who win elections, they win elections by winning elections. Those who want to win an election must win an election by winning an election and not winning a court case. In 2006, Michael Chilufya Sata of the Patriotic Front
E. Munshya, LLM, MBA, MDIV. Reports that Malawians have invaded Zambia to vote should be evaluated within the ambit of history, for without such an analysis we will become rumour mongers and liars who want to create a storm in a cup of tobwa, the east’s favourite drink. There are no Malawians that are invading Zambia to vote, or whose
By E. Munshya, LLM, M.Div., MBA To all police officers, please serve Zambians impartially. Do not shoot the innocent. Do not curtail liberties of our people. Protect President Lungu just as much as you would protect others. If you do not behave well and choose to behave like monsters, note that the world is watching, and politicians will not protect
By Elias Munshya, LL.M., MBA, M.Div. On Sunday October 18, 2015 President Edgar Lungu did something that was quite consistent with the practices of many of his predecessors: associate the Zambian state with the Christian religion. From its founding to the present, Zambia has wrestled with the question of what should be the correct relationship between faith and politics in
By Elias Munshya, LL.M., MBA, M.Div. When European colonialists landed on the shores of Africa, they found a continent and a people that were diverse, disparate, and disordered. In order for colonialism to take root, however, colonialists had to dismantle these three characteristics of the African peoples. It had to attack the diversity and the disparity of the African peoples.
By Elias Munshya, LLB (Hons), LLM, M.Div. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is the sole interpreter of the treaties and acts of the institutions of the European Union (EU). The African Union (AU) has not adopted a court similar to the role provided by the ECJ to the EU. Nevertheless, if and when the AU establishes such a court,
E. Munshya, LLB, M.Div. To help fight the scourge of tribalism in Zambia, some of our people are buying into several slogans in the hope that these slogans will help build some national cohesion. There is one particular slogan that I find patently problematic. This slogan states, “My tribe is Zambia”. The goal of using this slogan is to try
A gentleman by the name of Micheck Shulumanda has asked a few questions over the propriety of Guy Scott acting as president. He is challenging the use of Article 38 instead of Article 39 when deciding who should act as president. I wish to provide some answers. If the President appointed Minister of Defense and Justice, and PF Secretary General
E. Munshya, LLB (Hons), M.Div. Michael Chilufya did not have one life. He had many lives. His relatively long life, by Zambian standards, where life expectancy is around 45, mean that there is a huge span from which one could chose his story. Like many of his contemporaries, very little is known of his childhood. Born in 1937, there is
E. Munshya, LLB (Hons), M.Div. As Zambia celebrates her fifty years as an independent nation, there is a great temptation to only look at the good events that have shaped the nation and completely ignore the sad stories. Indeed, there is a lot we can talk about the good stuff that have evolved over our times in the young nation.
Zambia at 50: Essays in honour of Zambia’s golden jubilee Between now and October 24 2014, Munshya wa Munshya column will be running special golden jubilee essays. The first one in these series is “’Top Soil’: Chinsali and the making of the Zambian nation” E. Munshya, LLB (Hons), M.Div. What makes Chinsali great is not necessarily because it is home
E. Munshya, LLB (Hons), M.Div Never in the short history of our republic have we had a vice-president who is as marginalised as Guy Lindsay Scott. Effectively, this Patriotic Front government has managed to reduce the vice-president of our republic to a non-entity. As if it is not enough that Scott has no clue of much of the stuff happening
E. Munshya, LLB (Hons), M.Div. In a culture driven by headlines, our people mostly never take the time to read the fine print. Ours is a society, which ignores the body of any information in preference for what the headlines are screaming. Just a few weeks ago, the headlines squealed and most of our people believed that Kenya had established
E. Munshya, LLB (Hons), M.Div. We are a nation of “tamanga.” We are the generation epitomising the notion of “ifintu ni bwangu”. In everything we do, “musanga musanga” has come to define who we are and where we stand. “Tamanga” can mean many things. On the street, it has come to mean a people who have to hustle for survival.
E. Munshya, LLB (Hons), MA, MDiv. English and Pan-Africanism When a president has no agenda, she finds solace in promoting myopic nationalisms devoid of real sense. When a government has no tangible plan for development, it begins to couch useless pan-Africanist ideals that have no practical value. Nothing demonstrates this recklessness better than the recent decision of the Michael Sata government
Munshya wa Munshya “Unless the lions learn how to write”, asserts author Joshua Ngoma, “the hunters will always write their stories.” With this Kenyan proverb, Ngoma begins his 138-page book The Rise of the Africans (2012, Seaburn Publishing). This book, among other things, explains the four principles that Africans should coalesce around to ensure the inevitable and imminent rise of
By E. Munshya wa Munshya The Birth of The Man Biographers differ about where and when Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba was born. Even his names have raised controversy. Chiluba’s background had been such a thorny issue, that in the 1996 case of Lewanika and others v. Frederick Chiluba the Supreme Court of Zambia was invited to make a ruling on
By E. Munshya wa Munshya To treat a topic of this nature, a definition of terms is in order. Being of Congolese origin or heritage is a complex notion. However, in this article I use it to describe Zambian citizens with sufficient Congolese connections such as culture, tribe, family, and origins. I do not wish to use this term to
