Today, we lay aside our laurels, mourning deeply the passing of not just a director general (DG), but a voice that shaped — if not questioned — our national conversation.
I first met Brian Banda in the early days of my tenure as Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) DG in 2007. He was young, eager and already fearless with a microphone. I came across a lunch hour bulletin he had filed — clean, direct, and full of promise. I called him to my office and asked him a simple question:
“Brian, can you pioneer a talk show for us?”
Without hesitation, he said: “Yes.”
That “yes” birthed a career under The Gurus, one of the four programmes I had introduced on Radio 1. He was being produced by Vincent Khonyongwa, whilst topics for discussion were handled by Kondwani Nankhumwa, now a legislator.
That was our biggest mistake because we lost him to competition after three runs. But as Brian himself would later prove: “Great opportunities are not seen with your eyes. They are seen with your mind.”
His maiden show is still etched in my memory. The topic was ‘The state of security’. His guests were heavyweights: the late honourable Sam Mpasu representing UDF, honourable Kamlepo Kalua, honourable Kamuzu Chibambo and Dr. Heatherwick Ntaba.
It was live. It was raw. And it was Brian.
Dr. Ntaba came on the offensive, arguing that “security was better under the DPP government compared to the UDF days of young democrat violence”.
Then the late Sam Mpasu flipped the room. He turned to Dr. Ntaba and asked: “Dr. Ntaba, let me ask you. You were attacked recently and lost your computer. You are chief political adviser to the President. If a chief adviser to the President can be attacked, who is safe? Are you sure security is better now than during UDF times?”
The optics changed instantly. The studio went silent. And Brian… Brian panicked. This was MBC, where self-censorship was an occupational hazard.
It was his first major live debate, and “the heat was real”.
After the show, I called him to my office. He walked in “sweating profusely”, convinced his career was over.
I didn’t reprimand him. I saw a local Tim Sebastian with a Nguni flavour. I handed him a bottle of Cherry Plum and said: “Brian, that’s what journalism looks like. Hold the line.”
I reacted that way because I believe what Edward R. Murrow said: “The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.” Brian was destined to be seen.
From that day, Brian Banda became a household name.
He didn’t just host talk shows, he hosted the nation’s conscience. He became the first Malawian to serve in the press offices of two presidents and yet he still longed for his studio days.
Whenever he had no guest, he would call me: “DG Malopa, I need an urgent exclusivity.” And we would go live, often ending in open-ended debates that forced the country to “keep talking, to keep questioning, to keep demanding answers”.
In one of those interviews, he even asked if I could sell him my tweed jacket — to which I laughed. Thankfully, we were off air.
Last month, I saw that same hunger again.
We met at a dinner in Nyambadwe organised by our mutual friend, Tadeyo Mphande. Brian was now DG. I was the former. But the respect he gave me was heart-warming. He engaged me in a tête-à-tête and soon I realised he had deliberately invited me.
He asked me serious, boardroom questions about how to improve the station — content, programming and the business side. He asked about my motivation for the 413-manned organogram. He wasn’t just making conversation. He wanted to change things.
Because Brian lived by this truth: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” And he wanted MBC to go far.
I dropped a few names of people who, with a little empowerment, could redirect the lost traffic back to MBC. I also told him to pay attention to his staff’s hobbies because that’s where the secrets of creativity lie.
From that conversation, I learned that he eats with his family at the village every Saturday. How ironic that he died on a Saturday — the very day he had set aside for his village lunch.
He warmed up to those ideas. We talked for hours on end two DGs — past and present — dreaming about one MBC. I eventually had to escape, fearing my wife would lock me outside for late coming.
That was Brian. Even at the top, he was still the young journalist asking, learning and pushing.
Brian understood what Walter Cronkite meant when he said: “In seeking truth you have to get both sides of a story.”
And he lived by another truth: Journalism is what maintains democracy. It is what keeps our people informed.
To MBC, he gave leadership with humility.
To journalism, he gave integrity and grit.
To Malawi, he gave a mirror.
Brian, your maiden show taught you to survive the heat. Your time as DG taught us how to lead with it.
We will miss your voice in the studio, your calls for one more interview, and your belief that even a young journalist with one bulletin can grow to lead a national broadcaster.
Go well, my son in journalism. Go well, chidzukulu cha Nanjayiko.
The mic is off, but the conversation you started will continue.
“When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him, lies on the paths of men,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
May your soul rest in eternal peace.
*The author is a former MBC DG
