23/09/2025
LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM ZAMBIA’S PAST FOR ZAMBIA’S FUTURE: PART 5
On Political Repression
- “Mr Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe, Freedom fighter, former Republican Vice President and Dr Kaunda’s childhood friend was savagely beaten by UNIP cadres at Kamwala Market on 12th January 1972 in Lusaka after partying ways with the then political establishment. This was soon after winning the Mufulira parliamentary seat under the United Progressive Party (UPP) from prison, without campaigning.”
- “Before the 1978 UNIP Congress, while in Nigeria, Kaunda told the BBC he feared no one and welcomed challengers. Taking him at his word, Kapwepwe announced his candidacy against Kaunda. In response, constitutional amendments were engineered to bar Kapwepwe, Harry Nkumbula, and Reuben Chiluwe from challenging him.”
- “Kapwepwe’s last years were marked by humiliation. A former Vice President, he traveled by UBZ bus from Chinsali to Lusaka for High Court cases, and onward to Kalulushi by public transport. On one such journey, he collapsed at his daughter Dr. Sampa Kapwepwe’s home after suffering a stroke, and later died.”
- “Chiluwe, once Managing Director of INDECO and successful Businessman, was reduced to walking the streets of Lusaka and later died in poverty, the same way KK finished former UPP leaders such as Luanshya businessman Chama Chakomboka, P**a, Elias Mwamba Kaenga, etc.
Nkumbula, gravely ill, was denied permission to travel abroad for specialist treatment.”
Photo Credit: Simon Mwansa Kapwepwe Museum - Chinsali
