Malawi, and Africa in general, have not forgotten the excesses of the dictatorial regime of Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda.
But not many Africans let alone Malawians really know and/or believe the dark secret of his accession to power. This secret was carefully guarded by a few informed Malawians and foreign specialized services.
Indeed before the accession of Nyasaland, now Malawi, a young man named Kamuzu Banda had just finished high school. He spoke Chichewa correctly, his mother tongue and English. With a scholarship, he went to Britain to pursue medical studies. During his studies in Britain, he campaigned for the independence of Nyasaland, his native country, like many students at that time.
After obtaining his MD, he was preparing to return to his country to accelerate its independence when he disappeared in mysterious circumstances. Without his family being notified in the country.
THE TRUE-FALSE HASTINGS KAMUZU BANDA, MALAWI’S FUTURE LIBERATOR
In his place, another physician of his promotion of Ghanaian origin, not further identified, carried out a triumphant return to Nyasaland in 1958, under his identity after two years in Ghana. He introduced himself to the people as their son Kamuzu Banda, back to free his country from British rule. Malawian population awaiting a leader gave him a welcome worthy of a messiah.
But doubt moved slowly in some people who noticed that their son was not able to utter a single word in Kinyasa, his mother tongue.
Politely questioned about it, he pretended to have forgotten his native language because of the 42-year stay abroad.
Anyone who has lived in Southern Africa knows how this population is tied to national languages. Since then, doubt that moved around him began to be suspicious of his behavior.
A FALSE ACCOMPLICE AUNT, CHERISHED DURING HIS LONG REIGN.
To definitively eliminate the ambiguity, he was advised to make a visit to his native village of Mphonongo near Kasungu in order to be identified by his relatives.
After some hesitation he agreed to visit his native village. To avoid exposing his physical features, he went there at night.
In the village, after the usual introductions, a woman, the aunt of the real Kamuzu Banda spoke up and demanded if he would be his nephew, lend themselves to verification.
His nephew, she explained, has a scar on a specific location of his leg. Thus, a small group retreated with his aunt in the house. After a brief consultation, she was promised to receive all the favours if she confirmed that the alleged Kamuzu Banda was his nephew returned from England. Which she did and kept this secret for the rest of her life.
As promised, this aunt will enjoy a special status during the reign of Kamuzu Banda in the head of Malawi. She was filled with various goods.
CONFUSION CAREFULLY MAINTAINED FOR 31 YEARS.
The real name of Kamuzu Banda was Banda Kamnkhwala, born in the village of Mphonongo near Kasungu in 1896. His father was Mphonongo Banda and his mother Akupingamnyama Phiri, tells his uncle Hanock Masoka Phiri after the death of the dictator.
In 1910, Banda Kamnkhwala was baptized and took the name Akim Kamnkhwala Mtunthama Banda, he bartered against that of Hastings Kamuzu Banda on arrival abroad, says uncle Hanock Masoka Phiri. John Hastings was the surname of one of his teachers. From the same source, he left Nyasaland not the age of 13 (official biography), but at the age of 21.
At the death of the dictator in 1997 in Johannesburg, is on his death certificate we learn that he was born May 4, 1906 not according to his official biography, but in 1898 and was therefore died at 99 years.
A SINGLE LIFE ACCOMPANIED BY “A HOSTESS OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT OF MALAWI”.
Why Kamuzu Banda near the Presbyterian Church did he never married during his long life?
He lived for 30 years until his death in 1997 with the Zimbabwean nurse, Miss Cecilia Kadzamira Tamanda, whose official title was “official hostess of the Government of Malawi” and who was familiarly known as “Mama or Mother of the Nation” to whom he bequeathed his entire fortune estimated at 458 million dollars!
When she speaks of the family of the dictator, she still maintains its identity blurred: “The family’s going, it’s coming, while I accompanied him to his death.”
ELEMENTS OF HIS OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY: A FUNNY CHAIR AND A STRANGE DIET.
After dropping out of school at age thirteen, he joined South Africa, where he held various jobs including as an interpreter in a mine on the Rand. After attending evening classes for eight years at Hartley College, he won the United States with the help of a Methodist bishop.
In 1926, he left South Africa for thirty years. He attended several universities including the Academy of Wilberforce, Ohio where he comes out with a degree in 1928 and Indiana University in Bloomington, then of Chicago, Illinois (until 1931) before completing his studied medicine at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee in 1937.
Not seeing the possibility of a medical career in the United States, he enrolled at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland before finally getting a PhD in Tropical Medicine at the University of Liverpool in 1944. He opened a medical office in Liverpool (1942-1944) and in North Sheffield (1944-1945).
In 1945, he made contact with the independence leaders of Nyasaland his country, then a British protectorate and meeting the future leaders of the English-speaking African states such as the Kenyan Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, …
To avoid being called as a witness in a case of morals (his affair with a married associate, Margaret French was born a son named David), he fled to Ghana where he befriended Kwame N ‘ Krumah. He moved to Kumasi.
RETURNING MESSIAH IN BLANTYRE WOULD IT HAVE BEEN ARRANGED BY GHANA AND / OR GREAT BRITAIN?
Kwame Nkrumah help him to return to Nyasaland on July 6, 1958 (after 42 year absence), where his friends Henry Chipembere and Kanyama Chiume just been elected to the Legislative Council of Nyasaland.
After the turmoil of January-February 1959, he was arrested with 1,328 suspects. After his release from prison after 13 months of incarceration, he was elected president of the African National Congress (ANC / Nyasaland).
In 1960, he was invited to London to discuss a new constitution for Nyasaland. In the elections of 1961, the A. N.C. becomes Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and takes the 20 vacancies for the Africans of the 30 seats in parliament Nyasaland. He was appointed Prime Minister on 1 February 1963.
He proclaimed the independence of Nyasaland, which takes the name of Republic of Malawi on 6 July 1964 and became its first president.
ONE OF THE BLOODIEST DICTATORSHIPS AND MOST GROTESQUE OF AFRICA.
At the head of the party Malawi Congress Party (MCP), he imposes an autocratic regime in Malawi and retrograde very close to the apartheid regime of South Africa. His former comrades Henry Chipembere, Kanyama Chiume, Orton Chirwa and Yatuta Chisiza (shot in 1967) accused of plotting against him flee to Tanzania with the help of the Chinese Embassy. They try to file an opposition to the dictatorship of Hastings Kamuzu Banda.
Malawi became the only African country to maintain economic and political ties with the racist regimes of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. He is put in the dock of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), where he has never served in the belief that black African states would be crushed in the event of conflict between them and South Africa.
Because of its ties with the country of apartheid, Malawi is kept out of the country “front line” (Zambia, Tanzania, Botswana, Mozambique and Angola) and the Community Development State of Southern Africa (SADC).
NGWAZI, PRESIDENT FOR LIFE, THE LION OF MALAWI
On August 16, 1976, he proclaimed himself president for life. On August 16 of that year, he signed with the racist regime of South Africa, a trade agreement. Character and morals austere bachelor since his divorce in 1964, he banned in 1975, the mini-skirt for women, wearing long hair for men and pornographic literature. He also blames the sects. He establishes the cult of personality.
In 1982, Mozambique accuses Malawi to serve as a real base for the Mozambican National Resistance (RE.NA.MO.).
In February 1994, the constitutional conference chaired by the Australian judge Michael Kirby, the representative of the United Nations establishes the first presidential elections in June 17, 1994, after which Kamuzu Banda was defeated and replaced at the head of Malawi by the leader of United Democratic Front ( UNF), Bakili Muluzi.
A 96-year (officially), eight months after his oust
