Of Mama, Kamuzu’s ‘son’ identity saga: Molehill develops into mountain

Of Mama, Kamuzu’s ‘son’ identity saga: Molehill develops into mountain

By Nyasa Times

Published: July 28, 2010

A man Jim Jumani Johansson has applied to change his name to Jumani Immanuel Masauko Kamuzu Banda because the 37-year-old lookalike of the former president Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda fondly called Kamuzu believes the founding father of the Malawi nation could be his biological father.

There has been a public outcry on the claim by the man who left Malawi in 1979, in the company of his supposed mother, Mirriam Kaunda, and her husband Malts Johansson, who on official accounts appear both as a couple adopting the six-year Jumani and having left for Sweden.

Although the adoption certificate does not indicate the reason for adoption, as well as, who the biological father is, Mirriam has failed to convince her supposed son that his biological father is an Indian of Malawian descent, who now lives in England.

Meantime Jumani has, by intuition, sixth sense and conjecture, formulated umpteen theories that his biological mother could be from three mothers, who he does not name, and also four biological fathers, conspicuously of whom is Kamuzu, the first president of Malawi.

Admittedly, following his filing for a name change last week, Jumani has become an overnight celebrity figure in Malawi. It can be argued that his popularity might have surpassed the much unfairly media-hyped Justice and Constitutional Minister Prof Peter Mutharika, who is being groomed in the DPP-led government to assume the mantle of presidency come 2014 at the expense of the Vice President Joyce Banda.

And because of the perceived threat in a role which Jumani could play in the power play, the Kamuzu lookalike has become a darling to many Malawians especially those that have believed in President Bingu wa Mutharika’s idolization, glorification and admiration of the late tin-pot dictator, who ruled Malawi with a heavy hand for 30 years.

However, Jumani seems to have also poked a hornet’s nest in the thinking of a few others (including Kamuzu family) who do not wish him to play any political role in the power succession of Malawi. Some think Malawi has had enough of the presidents that have lived too long outside the country.

Jumani’s account of his claim is too true to be dismissed just like that. Although the Kaunda family has described him as mentally disturbed, or to that effect, after his one-year jail stint in Sweden for wife battering, no qualified psychiatrist anywhere else in the world has certified him insane. But Jumani sadly still continue to wear the label of a person who has delusions of grandeur.

The family of Kamuzu has dismissed Jumani’s paternity claim to Kamuzu and also given an account which is also too true to be dismissed just like that. In this controversial case, the DNA test remains the only surest way to dismiss or approve either claim.

Sadly, there could be one or two persons that will have to be held responsible for suppressing truth in future once government changes hands however long it will take if the tests do not take place now.

Meantime, there are outmaneuvering and goings-on within state machinery to throw a red herring to the Jumani’s journey to the truth with the presence of Finance Minister Ken Kandodo, Kamuzu’s nephew who is in the corridors of power at the moment.

Jumani is in record to have told the media that a lot of people have been paid money to shut up, just to conceal his identity; and lately he has not been amused at all when his lawyer Wapona Kita dumped him.

He believes his theory fits well with what has been happening since he set off for his journey to what he calls truth. Of the move on the rumour mill to deport him back to Sweden because he does not have a Malawi passport, he is on record to have whimpered irreconcilably that: “I attached my two birth certificates as quite contradictory as they are. The adoption papers which indicate my alleged mother Mirriam [Kaunda] adopting her own son. That is my proof that I belong to Malawi and I am a Malawian. Now, as it was done years ago, they want to send me out again.”

Although Jumani can be deported to Sweden using the heartless “state machinery,” it would be foolhardy of government to do so. For one thing, the Kamuzu’s son claimant has told the media reasonable grounds why he is not safer in Sweden now. And therefore should not be deported.

Again government would not convince ordinary Malawians that Jumani is not Malawian. In any case, by all accounts he is Malawian and deserves to live in Malawi. If he must be deported, then surely deport him to MALAWI AND NOWHERE ELSE.

As a matter of fact, Jumani deserves to be in Malawi now. Jumani says there have been six attempts on his life. The suspected assassins include Mirriam and his ex-wife both living in Sweden. Jumani cites several such incidents of attempt to maim him.

Mirriam is believed to have connived with Jumani’s ex-wife to have him declared insane so he could never live to give his side of the story in a court of law. There was again a time when he was hospitalised for a heart beat of 253, which his doctor told him could only have been for a person who had been drugged.

Of the many witnesses who have disputed Jumani’s claim to Kamuzu’s paternity, two people controversially stand out, Mama C. Tamanda Kadzamira and his maternal uncle John Tembo. Tembo, in surprise, said, if Kamuzu had children he would have known because he was very close to him. Interesting and insightful, one would say.

And Mama, through an official of her residence told the Nation newspaper last week that Jumani’s father was one of the Kamuzu’s financial advisors.

So far the two names that have been given to the media, Malts Johansson and Muhammad Jogee, were not Kamuzu’s financial advisors.

Johansson was an engineer with Business Machines and Jogee is a chartered accountant who never worked for Kamuzu in any capacity.

Therefore, Mama’s account to put a dismiss on Jumani claim does not simply add up. And Mama owes the world an explanation, a water-tight one for that matter.

In any case, Jumani told Capital Radio last week on its Straight Talk programme that he had been to Mama since he arrived into Malawi in 2008 but refused to divulge the nature of the meeting he had with the former Official Hostess.

Jumani sounded bizarrely respectful to Mama for whatever reason he might have had at the time of the Straight Talk interview with Brian Banda on Capital Radio.

For all anyone cares, Mama is not a person one would trust. She is on record to have spoiled careers of three journalists in Malawi, who until now still have not yet sued her for wrongful detention.

One Cecilia Tamanda Kadzamira, once a State House Official Hostess, a designation which was established under controversial circumstances, is a woman who keeps very fatal secrets about her life as well as that of his former master Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, both of whom many had lived under the illusion that they were common law husband and wife especially when Kamuzu got senile.

Kamuzu began to address Malawians with a tag “Mama and I”. One would ask. Why did a State House employee become to be in such a tag that should be left for husband and wife? It was not even surprising when Mama got the lion’s share of the estate of Kamuzu, who died on November 25, 1997 in a South Africa’s Garden City Clinic.

Examples of such perilous secrets abound. One which comes to mind is how she has managed to live until today without even apologising for the wrongful detention of four journalists following a gaffe she had made when she addressed women at a UN conference as a patron of the infamous CCAM (Chitukuko cha Amayi m’Malawi), a charitable organisation then.

In a banned book published in 1990 titled “Where Silence Rules: The Suppression of Dissent in Malawi”, author Richard Carver of African Watch Committee details how Kadzamira, subtly and ruthlessly crucified three journalists from state-run media for publishing the truth she had told the UN gathering.

The local press must be considered among the most slavishly conformist in the world but journalism has still its hazards. This is partly because journalists are always regarded with some suspicion by those in power with something to hide. But it is also because the official version of the truth may change without quite without warning. The strange tale of Jonathan Kuntambila, Sandy Kuwali and Paul Akomenji illustrates the hazards.

In March 1985 Kuntambila was the editor of the government owned Daily Times, while Kuwali and Akomenji were editors of the Malawi News Agency (MANA). Cecilia Kadzamira made a speech to a regional UN conference on women and development held in Malawi. Among her remarks was the observation that “Man cannot live without a woman” which was duly reported by the Daily Times and MANA.

By the following day, Kadzamira had had second thoughts about the remark, presumably considering that it might be offensive to the unmarried Life-President. The three journalists were arrested for “misreporting” the official Hostess’ speech. There is no doubt about what she actually said since the official UN transcript is quite clear.

A fourth journalist Bertha Mweso of the MBC who protested was detained for a month. Kuntambila, Akomenji and Kuwali were held for a year at Chichiri prison before being released without explanation or apology and without of course getting their jobs back. END OF VERBATIM.
Ladies and gentlemen, with these skeletons in Mama’s cupboard, who would believe her that Jumani’s father was one of Kamuzu’s financial advisors.

Worse still, with Jogee denying paternity, in the eyes of Mirriam, over that speakerphone, who would believe Mirriam’s account that indeed Jogee is the biological father of Jumani. Incidentally, how should Malawians expect to Jumani to have the courage to begin to entice Jogee to take a DNA paternity test when Jogee dismissed the claim point blank?

If Mirriam has the welfare of her “son” at heart, who she suspects to have mental problems after his jailing, wouldn’t it have been much easier for her as a mother to call Jogee to Sweden and do paternity DNA tests with the son to prevent him from further worsening in his mental health?

Why does Mirriam answer her son, who she thinks has a mental problem that it is not important for her to take a DNA test to ascertain her maternity? All Mirriam tells Jumani is “it is not important”. Does she really care for the health of the son, who she may have reasonable ground to suspect, might be suffering from mental problem?

Furthermore, Mirriam’s parents were living in Ndirande, Blantyre at the time of Jumani’s birth. Why did Mirriam have to travel all the way to Ekwendeni to deliver Jumani, when the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital or in general the City of Blantyre had better medical equipment than Ekwendeni in Mzimba at the time and even now?

For God’s sake, why should Mirriam waste her resources just to defend herself as mother to Jumani? Does a mother really have to get a lawyer to ascertain that she is the mother? Suspicion, suspicion, suspicion!

The most important element in all human relationships, whether business or personal, is trust. If you break that trust, the relationship will undoubtedly be damaged. A breach of trust can quickly grow as you tell lie after lie although you pay great effort to conceal your original deceit.

What may happen is that you may be unable to distinguish the truth. Can someone else out there tell us the truth while we wait for the DNA paternity or maternity test(s)? Stop building the mountain out of a molehill.