Kondwani Bell Munthali’s second instalment has an aide to Malawi’s first president rip into Hastings Banda’s former spy and there’s confusion about Jumani’s birth and adoption   

LILONGWE--Former Intelligence Chief Martin Focus Gwede is on record saying the man he spied for and protected, Malawi’s founding president Hastings Kamuzu Banda, had three children before he died in 1997.

A former cabinet minister and an aide to the former president, Elia Katola Phiri, said in an interview that there was no truth whatsoever in Gwede’s claims which were carried by the Weekend Nation.

In Katola Phiri’s opinion, Gwede’s long spell in jail after falling out with Banda could have led to his “sad and ridiculous” assertions. In other words, Gwede is insane and Katola Phiri, who was long time Local Government Minister in Banda’s cabinet, went on to impugn the character of Gwede as intelligence chief but fell short of spilling the beans. He didn’t want to air Gwede’s dirty linen in public, he claimed.

The statement by the former aide to Banda against Gwede is similar to one made against the man who came from Sweden and claims to be Kamuzu’s son.

Jim Jumani Johansson, 37, has also been accused of having an unstable mind because he spent a year in a Swedish jail. Jumani, a psychologist, has blamed people around him, including his ex-wife, for creating conditions that led to his incarceration. It was doctors who came up with the finding, according to Jumani.

Katola says of Gwede: “The truth needs to be preserved. I don’t know if he has been paid or it is that after years of being a drunk and in isolation he wakes up and makes such statements. It is unfortunate. He cannot claim that in his service he ever saw a woman go into State House apart from workers.”

Senior Chief Kaomba from Kasungu--Banda’s home district in central Malawi—warned Gwede and others who were working with Johansson in making unfounded claims that they might be required to bring evidence to substantiate their statements on Kamuzu.

Kaomba said Kamuzu, while travelling London, he met several people including Malawians and families he had known during his stay in Britain and it was possible that Gwede, who had accompanied Kamuzu, met children of one of Kamuzu’s former staff at his clinic.

“This woman had two children. She went to work in Ghana and briefly at one point came to Malawi. Her two children were all white. Gwede might have met such people,” said Kaomba.

Who was this woman? Was he referring to a Mrs. French whose husband is said have mentioned Kamuzu Banda contributing to their divorce?

The chief nodded.

The cyberspace has images of another Kamuzu look-alike—some say Jumani resembles the man he claims to be his biological father—floating around and he is said to have been a result of an affair Banda had with a Ghanaian woman. The man is Ghanaian businessman Alhaji Asoma Banda born in 1932 when Kamuzu was reportedly schooling in the United States. After leaving the United Kingdom, Kamuzu lived in Ghana before coming to Malawi, then Nyasaland, to join the liberation struggle.

Mrs. French’s son, Peter, has dismissed as untrue a claim that his mother and Banda had two children. Mrs. French was Banda’s secretary in the U.K. (We will return to Mrs. French and Dr. Banda in the last instalment.)

While Banda has been “given” children, there’s one man who has come up to say he believes Banda was his father, a move that has stirred up the emotions of Banda’s relatives as the court is about to decide how Banda’s wealth, said to be in millions of dollars both at home and abroad, is distributed. Jumani wants to take a DNA test to prove his claims. He also wants Mirriam Kaunda to do the same to prove that she gave birth to him. Kaunda has however said Jumani’s father was a man of Indian descent and not Kamuzu.

Jumani was born 2 May, 1973, according to his birth certificate.

But the man we met earlier in the story, Katola Phiri, says when Jumani was adopted in 1979, he was still an infant.

He said around 1979, Mirriam Kaunda--who had married a white man, presumed to be Mats Hakan Johansson—was, together with her family, living in Area 11. One day the Johansson’s had a garden sale at their home and Katola Phiri “went to buy things.”

“I remember I bought several things. We were told that not to make noise; there was a baby sleeping [and] people used to say it was a white baby,” said Katola Phiri.

Mats Hakan Johansson, Jumani’s adoptive father is listed as an engineer at Business Machines Limited, P.O Box 30089 Lilongwe 3 on the adoption paper in a case Cause number 2 of 1978 in the Lilongwe Resident Magistrate Court. The adoption order was signed by Resident Magistrate Tambala.

Jumani’s birth certificate whose details were sourced from the Registrar General’s department in 2009 identifies him as Jim Jumani Kaunda who was born on 2nd May, 1973 at Ekwendeni Hospital and was registered on 9th June, 1978 by R.L Ndala as birth within Mzimba district.

Magistrate Tambala’s order however recognizes Jumani as an infant on 6th April, 1979 as it reads, “And being satisfied that the allegations in the said petition are true and being also satisfied with the undertaking of the said Mats Hakan Johansson and his said wife and being further satisfied that is for the benefit of the said infant that he should be adopted.”

Throughout the adoption process Jumani is identified as an infant yet he should have been six years old in 1979 unless his mother Mirriam Kaunda presented another baby to the court.

Katola’s version of an infant further confuses the story as the birth certificate has no father’s name on it and it shows Kaunda adopting her own baby and information to the court presented by Mirriam herself.

In trying to clear up the muddy water, Senior Chief Kaomba suggested that Kamuzu might have paid for Jumani’s education as the former president did for many others who had benefitted from his generosity during his life time. Is that where Jumani got the idea that Kamuzu was his father? If that were the case that Banda sponsored his education--which the chief only suggested--it shouldn’t raise any eyebrows because Banda liked to help others, he said.

Any clearer? You be the judge.—maravipost

Part 3 Saturday

Read more: http://maravipost.com/index.php?Itemid=124&catid=54:politics&id=3988:kinsmen-protecting-legacy-2-gwede-in-cahoots-wjumani&option=com_content&view=article#ixzz104Y8Yy4B