UPDATE: Bazaar Nyirenda’s burial Thursday

The burial of MCP veteran Bazaar Nyirenda is slated for Thursday at Bwengu, Mzimba North.
Bazale as was popularly known died peacefully at age 90 on Wednesday morning, his family told Nation Online.
Born Shatiel Vincent Nyirenda in 1925, the brains behind Mzuzu’s first high-rise shop, Bazale Building, retired to Bwengu after playing distinguished roles in the fight for independence, entrenchment of self-rule and encouraging Malawians to develop post-colonial cities.
Unsurprisingly, hardworking, enterprising and disciplined have become buzzwords as politicians pay tribute to the man who served as Deputy Minister of Local Government, regional party treasurer, Member of Parliament and chairperson of Mzuzu City Council during the 31-year rule of Malawi Congress Party (MCP).
Uniquely, Bazale served as a regional treasurer general throughout founding president Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s one-party reign, spanning from independence in 1964 to 1994 multiparty general elections when MCP lost the presidency to United Democratic Front (UDF) co-founder Bakili Muluzi.
The then iconic Regional Minister for the North Robson Chirwa said the country has lost an innovative man who instilled the values of honesty and discipline in the party’s rank and file.
“He was a very honest man—very disciplined. That is why he served as regional treasure for such a longtime. He also encouraged people to be honest,” said Chirwa of the deceased who he worked with both in cabinet minister and MCP executive.
The fallen MCP old-timer also is remembered for resisting a whirlwind of opposition politicians defecting to parties in power, opting to retire from active life when Malawians voted Muluzi to replace Kamuzu.
Dan Msowoya was Alliance for Democracy (Aford) spokesperson in the early 1990s when the party and UDF were clamouring for a shift from MCP dictatorship to multiparty.
When asked, Msowoya said: “Tragically, he was my father in law. Politically, he was an orthodox who refused to graduate from the old way of doing things to democracy. He was stuck in Kamuzu’s times.
But as a person, he was disciplined and innovative. He had brilliant ideas and the willpower to turn his dreams into reality. To get along with him, you had to be very hardworking, nothing less.”

Such was the ingenuity of the fallen pioneer that he resigned from working a shopkeeper in Kandodo Stores to become a business mogul, a role model for local entrepreneurs whom he wanted to take charge of building the country’s cities.
Former Football Association of Malawi (FAM) Chief Executive Officer Charles Nyirenda said he would remember his father as a freedom fighter who spent 11 months in detention at Kanjedza for standing up against British rule.
According to the soccer administrator, the late Bazale joined the emancipation struggle in 1956 because he was annoyed with discriminatory colonial laws barring the African majority from shops, consigning them to buying through a maligned window.
The country’s first female minister Rose Chibambo cited the oppressive ‘window shopping’ as one of the things that catalysed the uprisings of 1959 when Britain declared a state of emergency.
The pioneer of Malawi politics, who died after a short bout with headaches and backaches which Charles attributed to old age, has survived by four wives and 18 children.
“The family has lost a pillar of discipline, hard work, adhering to high standards, peace and unity,” said Charles.
His modern buildings form the core of an emerging town near Bwengu Turn Off which he envisioned becoming a rural growth centre.