Family embarks on Chihana mausoleum project

The family of celebrated pro-democracy advocate late Chakufwa Chihana has rolled out a bid to mobilise resources for construction of a mausoleum at his burial site in Mzuzu.

His son Enock Chihana disclosed this in an interview with Nation on Sunday on Tuesday, saying phase one which involves construction of a tombstone will be completed by June this year when the country marks 17 years since his death.

The family plans follow years of government’s failure to construct the mausoleum for the former second vice-president despite first announcing such plans in 2012.

Said Chihana: “consultations are underway among the family members where we are setting up a committee consisting of his friends, workmates and family members to look at how we can proceed because, looking at the man being a public figure, we don’t want to offend others by making it only a family matter.”

The country’s former second vice-president died on June 12 2006 aged 67 following a brain tumour operation.

Chihana could not immediately disclose how much will be needed to implement the project.

“It’s very difficult to say how much will be required since we have just started sourcing quotations. But you know Chakufwa was classy as well as simple man.

“I remember at one point he was telling me that ‘when I die, don’t spend too much on me’ but when you die it’s not you who decides,” he said.

In 2020, the Tonse Alliance government, which his party Alliance for Democracy was a partner, committed to the Chihana mausoleum project.

However, two years on, there has been no movement. Asked if they have given up on government implementing the project, Chihana said: “It is now over 15 years and on average its three administrations. As a family we cannot just sit and wait for this administration or the next to initiate this.

“That is why we thought that first and foremost it is our responsibility as a family to do that. Secondly, government has got a lot of commitments. There is hunger, shortage of fertiliser and others.

“So, for the government to think of a mausoleum. They look at it as a luxury while to us, it is not. It is a need.  That is why we have moved a step,” he added.

In response to a questionnaire on Friday, Minister of Information Moses Kunkuyu said government still has plans to construct the mausoleum.

“The late Chihana Mausoleum remains on government’s table and expectation would be that where there are any changes or preferences, parties involved would communicate to each other.

“There was a time frame for each of the projects that are lined up.  Late Chakufwa Chihana’s Mausoleum will be done after completion of the Orton Chirwa Mausoleum and that of late Gwanda Chakuamba.

“The Orton Chirwa Mausoleum and that of late Gwanda are underway including the house for Mama Vera Chirwa,” he said.

Chihana spent the 1970s and 1980s in exile after crossing paths with former State President Hastings Kamuzu Banda as he opposed the one-party system.

In 1992, he returned to Malawi for a democratic conference. There he called Banda’s Malawi Congress Party “a party of death and darkness” and advocated for a multiparty system.

Following these remarks, he was arrested and sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labour for sedition. However, pressure continued to mount, and Banda agreed to a referendum, held on 17 June 1993, in which one-party rule was decisively rejected.