The Ngonis of Mzimba say they are planning to install the crown prince Mkhosi Jere, set to become Inkosi ya Makosi M’Mbelwa V, as the king of the Ngoniland in their bid to ensure that Mzimba is turned into a kingdom, independent from Malawi’s central government.
In an interview on Wednesday, Mzimba Heritage Association general secretary Ndabazake Thole also said the ngoni grouping is working on a petition to the Malawi Government, seeking a time frame when it would start recognising Mzimba as an independent kingdom.
He justified the move, saying that with the current decentralisation, people of Mzimba feel that such an arrangement cannot work unless the district is decentralised and became autonomous as it used to be before 1904.
Thole said the changes to the system came during independence when the authority was moved from the administrative council to the district council with a district commissioner taking over the authority from the Inkosi ya Makosi.
But in an interview on Wednesday, historian Desmond Dudwa Phiri said while he agrees that Mzimba was initially an independent kingdom later annexed to the then Nyasaland in 1904, the idea of having an independent kingdom cannot work now due to emerging dynamics in the running of a democratic government.
“That is just a waste of time and they will only create jealousy and rivarly among the other chiefs,” said Phiri, widely known as ‘D.D. Phiri.”
Phiri said the idea of the kingdom is tricky in a democracy because most chiefs have recently had their powers diluted due to the system.
He said the Mzimba situation was different from Swaziland since it has always been a separate country, but was similar to the Lewanika Kingdom which was part of the then Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and the Buganda Kingdom in Uganda which also to date are part of their countries.
The issue of the Mzimba Kingdom was first introduced in Parliament by Mzimba Luwelezi MP Immanuel Bofomo Nyirenda who argued Mzimba people were not part of Malawi and that the district was part of the country by mistake.
