Michael Chilufya Sata: Hero or Villain

On the day President Michael Chilufya Sata died Reuters carried the headline "Zambia's President 'King Cobra' Sata dies." The New York Times of October 30, 2014 described him as an "acerbic leader." This is a word frequently used to portray him as biting, sarcastic, mordant, sardonic, and disdainful. Almost all the papers I read implied that it was Sata's "sharp tongue" and "abrasive manner" that earned him the presidency. Such is how the world knew him and it is the way he shall be remembered.

Who was this man some people found devious, stubborn, even cruel, and others found realistic, loving, and inspiring? Let me also ask a question in the third rail: who is this man who was stooped in so much mystery the country hardly knew how he lived and died? There are other questions like how will history judge him. All these questions lead to a fundamental whole: who was Michael Chilufya Sata?

The moment of truth occurred on November 2, 2014. The booming sound of the jets alerted Lusaka residents of the arrival of the remains of President Michael Sata. As the chartered plane banked toward the airport, it provided a somber motif for the people below. Thousands could not help but to shed a tear. When the plane finally touched down at the Kenneth Kaunda International airport, hundreds of grief-stricken people broke into wailing.

Here was a man with humble origins and limited schooling born as he was at Chitulika village in Mpika District given a sendoff worth a king. Growing up in rural Zambia, not in his wildest dreams did he think one day he would become a president and determine the fate of 14 million people. Attending Catholic Catechists seminary schools, Katibunga, Kantensha, and Lubushi his eyes were set on becoming a priest. Of course this was not to be. God had other plans for him.

On the day president Sata was put to rest he left a glowing lesson to all Zambians that no matter your humble beginnings, through hard work and perseverance, you can succeed. It is this that won him the hearts of many. It is true that as president he bettered the lives of many people, some who became cabinet ministers, ambassadors, diplomats, successful businessmen, and employed party cadres. It is also true that he rescued and elevated countless pauper men and women to bourgeois status.
From the day he expired eulogists praised him unconditionally and gave him the many great human values he deserves. President Kenneth Kaunda who should be credited for Sata's rise to political fame described him as a "down to earth person" and an "organizer and mobilizer of the grass roots." Other eulogists praised his courage and absolute devotion to the country. They said he was personally responsible for almost all the developmental projects around the country—road network, bridge construction, structural building etc.

How then will Sata be historically remembered? Did those who eulogized him come too late to change the annals of history? Can the positive things he did continue to hold his buoyancy? Does this mean that he was upright, without spot and blemish? These are questions no one is asking. Zambians would rather not discuss them. The problem with this is that because we as a people fail to provide a true discourse of the past, we do not learn any lessons from those departed who became heroes and made a difference in our lives.

We are now in an era where events have to be remembered and preserved in some authentic form so our children can learn from them. Their meaningful connection to the past demands nothing is left unturned. In the case of Michael Sata, as in the case of his four predecessors, his pros and cons, and weaknesses and strengths must be laid on the table for our children, and indeed, the entire world to see.

Our children must, for instance, understand why the world chose to emphasize his "King Cobra" sobriquet than quote Kaunda and other eulogists. They must understand why the media equated him to the unpredictable and highly venomous king cobra, a snake with a fearsome reputation. They must know that he earned the tag because of his episodic ambushes on his political opponents and his aggressive disposition.

Those of us with vivid memories of the early Sata days recall how he treated his opponent Maxwell Sibongo in his quest to become Member of Parliament for Kabwata. He bought all the goods in his shop, distributed them to children then walked in with the press to portray Sibongo as a struggling businessman. It was here that the nickname began to bloom. It flourished in 1991 when he candidly called President Kaunda a dictator, and threatened to expose him, something no one dared in those days. Hereafter, the nickname would be used to describe him as fork-tongued, unpredictable, erratic, mysterious, and intractable. 

Someone wrote about Sata: "mysteriously he came, mysteriously he ruled, and mysteriously he left." During my research that culminated in the "Biography of Michael Sata President of Zambia," I discovered that when Sata become governor of Lusaka in 1985, he did not want his past to blanket his newly acquired status.

In his effort to maintain his elitist personality he fought hard to conceal his past life, that of bullying, an inferior education, job as constable, serving jail time, and working as a sweeper and porter at Victoria Station and other train platforms in London. It was this insecurity that made him overly sensitive to criticism, and led to his erratic and confrontational behavior and often times, vulgar and boorish disposition.

Up until he became president, no one knew who he really was. Those who did like Kaunda, Guy Scott, children from his first marriage, childhood friends and former schoolmates chose to keep quiet. It is this that prompted me to spend two months at the African Studies Library of the Boston University on 771 Commonwealth Avenue, and other libraries, to try and document his life, which I did with resounding success.

It was during my research I discovered that throughout Sata's political life which began in 1963 when he became UNIP Chimwemwe branch treasurer up until he became president, he successfully concealed his past and created his own mode of life, to which everyone was to adhere. In my notes I wrote: "There is one undisputable fact about Sata that stands out of the book ["African Proletarians and Colonial Capitalism: The origins, growth, and struggles of the labour movement to 1964" by Dr. Henry Meebelo (1986)]: his tenacious and 'militancy and rancorous' intransigent behavior dates back to his youth days." As a worker with Roberts Construction in the 1960s, and as a unionist, he was known as a rubble-rouser, a label he would keep up to his final day.

But as has been proved, in his personal ambition he was not only razor sharp, but also tactical and strategic, or how else could a person with a defective education convince some of Zambia's intelligentsia like Dr. Guy Scott, Dr. Waza Kaunda, Professor Nkandu Luo, Dr. Joseph Katema and other cognoscenti to rally behind him in his quest to become president. Realizing he was a talented political operator, they succumbed to his cynical, discourteous, uncouth and intemperate behavior.

Zambians watched him as he turned his amoral characteristics into a symbol of fearlessness and showed off his pro-poor political skills. When he began to rip cabbages to depict the disintegration of Mwanawasa's brain, he became a hero for the vulnerable grassroots—the compound communities, uneducated, unemployed and self-employed individuals, street peddlers and vendors, women marketeers, mobsters, and criminals. He knew what they desperately wanted; combatant behavior, empty promises, lies, and fantasies. It was this dark art of political mendacity [falsehoods] that would have him elected as president on September 23, 2011.

As president, he knew false promises would come back to haunt him. From day one, he engaged in his usual protective, manipulative, and illusory activities. When the media reared its supposedly ugly head and threatened to expose him, he reached for the PF panga and beheaded it. He sent surviving reporters into Foreign Service and took some undomesticated ones to court. At international level he substituted arrogance for diplomacy and found himself isolated in places like the African Unity.

Eager for power, Sata sought protection from his party cadres. Right under his nose, cadres, some armed with pangas, chains, and machetes disrupted meetings of the opposing parties, and intimidated citizens. By mid-2013, the PF was headed for the most violent party in our nation's history. Many feared Sata was on his ruinous path and was turning Zambia into a dictatorial police state. 

While all this was happening, what we did not know was that the president was terminally ill. Let's all pause for a while and share a freeze-frame: May 21, 2014 the late president outside the Lusaka High Court, being led into court by his son Mulenga and Wynter Kabimba. It was on this day that it became clear to the nation that the president was not enjoying good health.

What followed can only be termed as forbidding and cold-blooded deception. For fear of his illness becoming an obstacle to his presidency, Sata himself concealed his medical afflictions. Like he had secreted his life, so he did with his health. Aided by his physician wife, and abetted by Guy Scott, government spokesman Joseph Katema, and one-time moralist Mwansa Kapeya, they staged one of the most disheartening political stunts.

The afore-mentioned people failed to provide true basic information about his illness and his absences from the public. It is because of them that the nation hopelessly watched the president wilt and helix downward towards his death. On October 28, 2014, he died of undisclosed illness. The concealment of his illness augmented who Sata had been all these years; a strong-headed, hard-hearted, egotistical, narcissistic, and sadistic individual who allowed his poor decisions to dictate his life. He was a love-or-hate hero to some, and villain to others. One thing for sure is he failed to rise above his ego. It is this in him that eroded the sanctity of the presidency.

Field Ruwe is a US-based Zambian media practitioner, historian, author, and a doctoral candidate.  Learn more about him on his website www.aruwebooks.com. On it you shall access his autobiography, articles, and books.  Contact him, blog, or join in the debate. ©Ruwe2012.