John Zenus Ungapake Tembo is our man of 2018

Sometime in 2018, ZBS TV had a one-hour long personality, profile or exclusive interview with the former president of the Malawi Congress Party and leader of the opposition in Parliament, John Zenus Ungapake Tembo.   Of all personality or profile interviews, we watched or listened to in 2018, this stood out as the most professionally handled and, consequently, the most revealing.

The anchor, Joab Frank Chakhaza, who produces Cruise 5,  the personality interview programme on the TV network, proved that he really prepared to get what he wanted from his interviewee.

Those who grew up in the 1970-1990s will admit that John Tembo, also known as JZU, was probably the most feared politician, probably more than the Ngwazi, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda himself. His name was only mentioned in hushed tones or allegories.  He was so trusted by Kamuzu that at one time he was chairman of 13 parastatal companies, including the University of Malawi.  Every political scandal, maladministration, jailing, and, even killing, ‘accidentalisation’ or disappearance, of MCP colleagues was blamed on him. 

Some of the accusations could be true and others not. 

The Cruise 5 interview revealed a number of things that we did not know about Malawi and Tembo’s own approach to politics.

First, he dismissed the allegation that he fought hard to get rid of John Msonthi to become interpreter of Kamuzu Banda’s live speeches. He said actually it was John Msonthi who recommended him to Kamuzu Banda to assist when he got ill.  He only became fulltime interpreter after Msonthi’s death.

Second, he said the people who forcibly collected money from Malawians in the form of MCP membership (MCP cards enforcement) were not sent by the party to do so. Local party leaders were competing in membership recruitment. Neither he nor the Ngwazi sent anybody to forcibly collect money.  Some acted in the name of the Ngwazi and himself merely to extort money from people.

Third, he told Cruise 5 that there was no one who qualified as very powerful during Kamuzu Banda’s administration. All decisions were made by Kamuzu and Kamuzu alone.  This should not be surprising because in his apology to Malawians following his defeat in the 1994 elections, Kamuzu Banda took the blame for all wrongs in the country for all 30 years he was president.

Fourth, John Tembo told Malawians that the MCP and UDF never ever went into an electoral alliance although in 2009 Bakili Muluzi backed and campaigned for John Tembo as president.  At face value, the dismissal of the MCP-UDF alliance proved that Tembo had aged and could not remember what happened nine years earlier. However, his question, “who was the president of that alliance?” gives food for thought as to what an alliance ought to be: Memorandum of understanding; administrative structure; and a leader agreed on by the parties to the alliance. As long as these did not exist, there was no alliance between MCP and UDF just as there is no alliance between DPP and UDF today.

Fifth, he informed the nation that it was not he who proposed that Kamuzu Banda should be Life President of Malawi. The proposal came from Richard Chidzanja Nkhoma and the rest just supported the proposal. Thereafter, Kamuzu was initiated the Chewa way. He rode on the ‘elephant’ at the MCP office in Lilongwe. As to what that means, Tembo referred Joab Chakhaza to Chewa initiation cult and culture.

This dispels the rumour and allegations that have circulated in Malawi that Kamuzu was made life president in Mzuzu by people from the North. Aleke Banda’s name is often ignorantly, if not maliciously, linked to the proposal to make Kamuzu Banda life president.  As far as John Tembo recalls, those rumours are false and wrong.

Sixth, he said he does not offer advice or comment on the way the country is being run unless asked to do so because he does not want anybody to blame him for his or her failure to run the country.

So, for partly setting Malawi’s political record straight, we declare John Zenus Ungapake Tembo our man of 2018. Our appeal is for him to write his memoirs or autobiography for the benefit of posterity. n