Friday, 10 September 2010 21:00

In the short time that the Malawi nation has learned of the death of Aleke K. Banda, Joe Chibewa leads Maravipost.com crack team of political reporters with this eulogy of one of Malawi's finest sons

MZUZU--Humility was his trademark. And it did not come by accident. Those who knew him will bear testimony that the man remained humble in his greatness all his life. It is difficult to believe Aleke Kadonaphani Banda is no more.

On November 14 last year, the humble man was at long last recognised by the Mzuzu University as one of the greatest sons of Malawi by conferring on him a Doctor of Philosophy degree (Honoris Causa) to honour him for his great service to the Malawi nation.

Every country that has achieved independence from colonial rule in the past 200 years or so recognises someone as a founding father. Usually, the success of such a person owed a good deal to men and women who surrounded him.

In Malawi, the father and founder of the nation, so to speak, was Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, but his success during the fight for independence owed a lot to those who were with him when the struggle for independence was at its height.

That is why the nation remembers people like Henry Masauko Chipembere, the Chisiza brothers (Dunduzu and Yatuta), Kanyama Chiume, Willie Chokani, Lali Lubani, Laurence Makata, Augustine Bwanausi, David Lubadiri, Qabaniso Chibambo, Rose Chibambo, Orton Chirwa and others too numerous to name.

Such a list will be incomplete without the inclusion of one name—that of Aleke.

Born in Livingtone in 1939, Zambia, where his mother had gone to visit her elder sister, Aleke was taken back to Kwekwe in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where his father, Eleazer Great Banda, was working at Globe and Phoenix Mine.

Young Aleke started school in Malawi, then Nyasaland, at a relatively late age of nine years at Tukombo in Nkhata Bay because when he was five, in 1944, his mother brought him back to Tukombo where he remained for three years without attending school.

Maybe that must have fuelled his appetite for school and knowledge.

But perhaps his formative years that were spent at Globe and Phoenix Mine School must have laid a good foundation for his future personality as evidenced by his performance and achievements in later years.

And he owes that to his headmaster, James Mayendesa Dick Mayanika, who was very crucial in whatever young Aleke was doing at school.

After obtaining permission from his father, Mayanika was to keep Aleke in his house as a domestic assistant where he was kept busy from dawn to dusk, everyday, washing clothes, cooking and gardening.

While performing all these chores, Aleke found time to attend school, the result of which was that he came top of his class at every test and examination. He learned to work while a child and never learned to play.

When grown-ups would discuss serious public affairs such as freedom and independence, and the ‘stupid’ Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, young Aleke listened attentively and posed questions. No wonder that by 1953, at a tender age of 14, during the year the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was imposed, he was made district secretary of the Kwe Kwe Branch of Nyasaland African Congress.

In 1955, Aleke passed the primary school leaving certificate examinations of Southern Rhodesia at the top of his class and was awarded a bursary to Inyati by Kwe Kwe African Welfare Society.

In April this year he was there again at the invitation of the head of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, formerly the Loudon Missionary Society and the Alumni of inyati to attend the 150th anniversary of the mission where Aleke was received as one of distinguished ex-students.

Aleke’s real political test came when he was deported to back Nyasaland after Sr. Robert Armitage declared the State of Emergency in Nyasaland on 3rd March, 1959.

He was picked while in class and detained at Khami Prison, just outside Bulawayo. There he met the cream of Malawin society in the names Rubadiri, Vincent Gondwe, the Bwanausi brothers, Orton Chirwa and Chokani who started coaching him for the Cambridge School Certificate examinations to take place that year.

Unfortunately, Aleke and others were deported to Nyasaland that same year.

It only took two weeks after his arrival in Blantyre that he accidentally saw offices of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Blantyre where he introduced himself to Weston Chisiza, the General Secretary and at Aleke’s suggestion it did not take time to start a newspaper to campaign for the lifting of the State of Emergency and the release of Dr. Banda and other detainees.

In August, 1959, Aleke was one of the founding members of the Malawi Congress Party along with Orton Chirwa to replace the Nyasaland African Congress which was banned. The MCP was launched on 30th September of the year and by December Aleke was editor of the Malawi News, a hot mouthpiece of the MCP.

Aleke had a litany of achievements in his socio-economic and political career spanning from 1964, having served in Dr. Banda’s and Bakili Muluzi’s regimes in various cabinet portfolios and capacities, before forming his own PPM party.

He also has a list of honours to his credit, including being "knighted" by President Bingu wa Mutharika with the medal of Grand Achiever of the Malawi Order of National Achievement.

But perhaps what Malawians will remember Aleke most for is his humility to retire from politics last year to pave way for the younger generation to continue from where he stopped—a thing most African politicians will love to hate.

The lesson one derives from Aleke, fondly known as simply AKB, is: "If you want to be a great person, humble yourself...Always aim high, but be modest."

AKB died April 9, 2010 in a South African hospital from cancer. A workaholic, he was until his death chairman of Nation Publications Limited, publishers of The Nation, The Weekend Nation, Nation on Sunday and Nation Online. He is survived by a wife, children and great-grand children. He was 71.

AKB, R.I.P.--maravipost

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