Soldier explains conflict with Bingu

Like love, rivalries of this world must end when the beloved dies. Soldier Lucius Banda sings ceasefire in Kuwala, a tribute to the late president Bingu wa Mutharika which implores the new leader Joyce Banda (JB) to bring light to people who walked in darkness—including artists who were banned for criticising government.

As the mourning continues, the firebrand artist says he forgave the fallen leader, whom he has been rebuking for poor political and economic governance since 2005.

However, in an exclusive interview on Tuesday, he took Society to the root of their sour relationship, saying: “Mutharika denied me a handshake and pretended he did not know me when I had sleepless nights and over 70 performances during his campaign rallies in 2004.”

According to the self-styled Soldier of the Poor, not even apologies via retired Bishop Felix Mkhori could heal wounds of the “unfriendly greeting” which took place at Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe on the late president’s arrival from his first UN Summit in 2005.

“I was queuing with other VIPs to welcome him and Uladi Mussa had just introduced me when Mutharika asked, ‘who is this man’ and avoided to shake my hands. I started avoiding him and we last shook hands at a church anniversary at Balaka Catholic Parish later in 2004,” said the musician, a former Balaka North Member of Parliament who introduced contentious impeachment procedures in Parliament.

It appears the two were destined for the headlong clash from March 28 2003, when former president Bakili Muluzi announced that the United Democratic Front (UDF) executive had endorsed Mutharika as his successor.

Lucius said he immediately met Muluzi to express his dismay because Mutharika was just an unknown party member unlike the late Aleke Banda and Harry Thomson. He quoted Muluzi, who touted Mutharika as an economic engineer, as arguing that the country needed a catholic president after being ruled by a Muslim and a Presbyterian.

“I felt it was not good to hand over power to an old candidate when the party had in store younger minds who were well-known. However, he insisted that we needed his chosen economic engineer because he was a Catholic,” said Lucius.

Afterwards, the artist sang Yellow which became Mutharika’s campaign single and he performed at over 70 UDF rallies towards 2004 polls.

For the job, the musician admittedly got seven-tonne lorry and band equipment since the rest was his contribution to the party “which was going to be rewarded after Mutharika’s triumph”.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) birth saw UDF and other opposition parties agitating to impeach Mutharika—and the retired politician says he happily offered to table the impeachment procedures in the National Assembly.

He explained: “Early that week, I went to Parliament wearing a red suit, but the late Chakufwa Chihana rose in the chamber to jokingly ask MPs to donate their suits to me because my dressing was funny. I rose on point of order and joked back that my red attire signalled a bloody week.”

The remark was held against Lucius after the Speaker Rodwell Munyenyembe collapsed and died while calming the hullabaloo that erupted after he tabled the impeachment procedures. He says even the State House feared he was a satanist and that they were punishing the right thing—the devil.

But the aftermath did not stop at that. He says the police subjected his cars and house to constant investigations; government stopped booking his Zembani Lodge in Balaka; public institutions were ordered never to hire Zembani Band and his music was banned on State-run MBC radio stations and TV and corporate firms even cancelled contracts because of pressure from above.

On August 31 2006, he was jailed for 67 days after the Zomba Magistrate’s Court convicted him of forging an MSCE certificate.

“Such were the retributions that Jacuzzi won MBC Entertainers Award in 2008 because the chairperson, the Reverend Buxton Maulidi, refused to swap it with Joseph Nkasa’s pro-Mutharika song, Mose Walero,” argues Lucius.

On the arts note, he implores JB to lift the ban on critical artworks on public airwaves, desist from invoking censorship laws and remain steadfast in democracy.