Brilliant article, utterly enjoyed the professional way it was written and the brutal honesty it contains. Did some research and found astonishing things about this man. Unfortunately I was too young to realise how great the loss of this man was for Zambia. I hope and pray our people will one day learn from the past mistakes which has pushed our country to the brink of economic and moral collapse.

This is a brilliant piece. I have read the book and I found it fascinating. It made me dream of what could be. I pray that one day, we can actually materialize what VM dreamt of. And yes, KK is not the angel he is constantly made out to be. Even the stories my grand ma tells me just make me sad. How our people have suffered at the hands of our so called founding father

A true case of the old adage; "Time will tell". An exceptional man with extraordinary foresight and lucidity. I think the damage that was feared is entrenched beyond repair that regardless of how honest, sincere or compassionate a leader is at the top, the cycle of bad practice will prevail. Which is why only when the system eats into itself or is collapsed from within. Can we possibly hope to rebuild and restructure a meritocratic, efficient system. HM

I enjoyed every bit of it including the part where i find that you are obviously not guilty of objectivity. especially around reasons of the "night without a president" which you have trivialized. Otherwise, thumbs up for the review.

Sharp, sharp... razor sharp writing. I need to find this book and read it is there anyone out there that can tell me where to get it. This is a "must have" for my library.

I think Chanda Chisala was brilliant in his writing. Makes you want to give a standing ovation after each paragraph.

KK was a supremely flawed person who like all politicians fought his way up to the top of the greasy pole. he is an unfortunate product of our cultural mindset. Even the PHD syndrome (I do not believe it exist) is part of this syndrome. Opposition and criticism are to be ignored. Anyone who differs with you is an enemy. My take on this is review all criticism both positive and negative and do everything to prove your critics wrong.
We are more concerned about what people said about you and take action accordingly. We do not pay enough attention to the fact that you can shut up your critics by excelling.
Our founding Father was not immune to these cultural pressures. Valentine Musakanya would have thrived in the Anglo-Saxon world. KK had his merits and probably with a different mindset would have taken an independent personality like Valentine Musakanya. However our culture actually pull us down. As soon we get a title or a prestigious job or make some money we expect all to bow down to us.
the resurgence of Kaunda was no mistake. The even more flawed FTJ and with an even more monumental chip on his shoulder proceeded to exceed KK in insecurity, kleptomania and succeeded in making a mockery of our so called democracy. he too locked up people at whim. He too cut down any rivals who seemed more intelligent or gaining an independent power base.
until we are man enough to accept our good fortune and respect other people for their independence we are doomed to be locked in a cycle of sycophancy. Valentine Musakanya's memoirs prove the old adage The more things change the more they stay the same.

I have enjoyed this honest write up which now puts things in perspective. Having read the book by Andrew Sardanis, Africa - The Other Side Of the Coin, i now understand the failure of our leadership and the assimilation of an uninspiring legacy from the Kaunda era.

Mr. Sardanis, a close friend of VM from pre-independence days, describes the manner of man he was and what this country would have achieved from his service and advice which still remains unheeded to date.

Well it’s a very good over view of the book and it obviously inspires me to read it...but i must say that i am a little disappointed by your attitude towards Kenneth Kaunda which in my view is typical of all of you that live in the diaspora. At 31 I feel that I am old enough to know and judge “GREATNESS” when I see it and I personally feel Kenneth Kaunda REEKS of it. Unlike you i have met the man personally and honestly, not as many times as i would need to claim that i know him personally but enough times to get a sense of WHO the man is. It amazes how most of you that like to criticize Dr Kenneth David Kaunda easily forget the gifts that he has empowered you with i.e The EDUCATION you now use to critic his rule, The PEACE you continue to ENJOY, the DEMOCRACY he allowed so that we could realize the RIGHTS and FREEDOMS that we unfortunately still hope for today and so on and so forth.

The reason you are in the diaspora NOW is testament to the fact that CONDITIONS in Zambia are not as good as they were during what you probably refer to as Kaunda’s despicable rule and quite frankly you or anybody on this forum are yet to achieve a tenth of what this man has achieved for this Country. I am appalled by individuals who have had opportunities and yet do not recognize that there are Zambians today who will NEVER enjoy the opportunities that you enjoyed growing up in this country BECAUSE of the decisions that “wanna be” revolutionaries made without a solid plan in 1991.

A man and a mind like Kaunda’s was RELEVANT for his day and time. What’s more is that I do not think you can judge the man by the decisions he made because you cannot even begin to FANTHOM the environment that he had to make those decisions in while trying to with stand the pressures that, that environment exerted on to him i.e. From Apartheid to Southern Rhodesia to South West Africa…to trying to unite 72 tribesmen and women. Kenneth Kaunda applied a leadership style that he felt was appropriate for its time and I believe to this day that he was right about taking the route he took. The last thing EVEN YOU would need while trying to coordinate a national defense strategy against night time bombings and sporadic mercenary attacks is an intellectual trying to educate you about the tenets of democracy. It would be FOOLISH for us to even think that changing Presidents or Governments every 10 years in the name of Democracy would have achieved the liberation of Africa and development in Zambia as it did with the man we now refer to as DICTATOR. I cannot even begin to imagine what or where Zambia would now be if we had, had a Chiluba Presidency in 1974.

Let’s not beat about the bush…independent thinking also has its downside and one of our greatest weaknesses as Africans is the comparison we always trying to make with the west. One of the most important lessons we must try to learn from CHINA is that Africa needs to DEFINE its own FORM of democracy!!!
I will leave that there…

And they were not the only ones who recognized VM's mind. When VM was finally fired from government in 1972 for continuing to innocently express his honest thoughts, he was quickly poached by IBM itself, and he became their only black director for their Africa operations (their Africa operations management team was previously all white!) This was before the affirmative action era, when companies did not care about racial balancing and focused only on hiring the most meriting talents they could find on the planet.

The last sentence about IBM and the affirmative actions of that era being based on merit just threw me out of continuing reading this rather nice story about Mr. Musakanya. Don't get me wrong, I don't deny the man's genius or whatever character he may have been. However, there is something seriously wrong to this one sided tale of genius. If you think racial bias was not the norm in those days, then who's to believe what else your big brain got say.

There are always 3 sides to a story, your side, their side and the truth. I see Chanda in this article you have chosen VM's side as Gospel and gone out to paint KK as an absolute devil. You really must get KK's side of the story before you come to your conclusions. I know you are not a lawyer and therefore dont expect much objectivity from you and quite clearly you have issues with the way KK ruled. I will read the book (which I havnt done) and carry out my own research on the issue. I'll get the story from both sides and come up with a more independent story than the bias I see in yours. I feel strongly your article is misleading.

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