By Augustine Mukoka
A RESPONSE TO BWEZANI MBEWE: A Football Social Media Influencer With Serpent-Like Characteristics That Has Potential To Fuel Division Between FAZ President Keith Mweemba & His Deputy Mutale Ng’andu
An article published yesterday narrating an attempt by FAZ Vice-President Mutale Ng’andu triggered a flurry of reactions.
In summary, those reactions confirmed one thing – what I published was neither hearsay or false but a reality of what is obtaining in our football administration.
It’s expected that articles I write will elicit reactions, responses and counter criticism. I understand and I am ready to take it because this is what comes with the territory.
One of my mentors, the late Edem Djokotoe (MHSCRIP), once told me such is an occupational hazard – we have to live with it.
So, I get it. Some even go for my person or those around me. It bothers less. What’s important is that the truth is stubborn, it has a way of eventually showing itself up.
However, I take strong exception when some of these reactions are made by people who know truth, are party of the reality or indeed are in the same trade as I am.
Just a few days ago, I published an article on Copper Queens Nora Hauptle’s imminent departure. Our national broadcaster, ZNBC, published an article quoting a faceless individual in the FAZ communications department that the said article was “false” & “misleading”.
Well, I hardly talk about colleagues in the FAZ Communication Department publicly so I responded to the jab. Some of them reached out to me. The submission they gave me suggested ZNBC concocted the statement to dispute my article.
That prompted me to do a little more investigation. I went on to establish who the actually faceless individual behind that statement is.
Hope that faceless person can look himself in the mirror and tell the nation who between him and me had spread falsehoods – Nora is not in Brazil.
That aside. Bwezani published two articles on the situation regarding FAZ Vice-President Mutale Ng’andu with one stating, “MUTALE NG’ANDU RESPONDS WITH SCRIPTURE AS RUMOURS SWIRL”
By definition, a rumour lacks in accuracy thereby casting aspersions on its veracity and credibility of the author. If there’s anything anyone with a journalism background, training or profession holds dear is his or her credibility.
Not that journalists are infallible and perfect humans. No. We do get some stuff wrong and when we do, are must make amends by ways of retraction and apologizing. Ours is loyalty to the truth.
Bwezani’s response suggests the article I published was a “rumor” which was aimed at sowing “confusion by dividing personalities” in the FAZ Executive Committee.
Here are parts of the article by Bwezani I found concerning.
“Yet some leaders choose patience over noise and faith over headlines.
“Instead of rushing to divide personalities, football stakeholders must encourage cooperation among those entrusted with leading the game.
“At times rumors move faster than reality.”
What Bwezani doesn’t disclose is that he was one of the few people who knew about Mutale’s threat to quit and talked him out of it. How can someone in such a mix refer to the development as a rumor?
Bwezani was in both Keith and Mutale’s campaign teams.
Barely one month or so after current leadership was elected, Bwezani carried out a secret operation to investigate Mutale on behalf of Keith.
Thereafter, he put out a damning report that virtually scandalized the Vice-President and some ExCo members. How can such a person then go in the open and allege revelations about the vice-president’s threat to resign was aimed at “dividing personalities in ExCo”?
The deception and hypocrisy with which Bwezani carries himself is not only appalling but dangerous. You can’t be posturing as a goodie, goodie in the face of serious problems.
What honest is in Bwezani when he would carry a secret investigation of a person as Mutale, his friend, at the behest of the FAZ president, his friend, who is also his friend’s superior at FAZ? Is this not sowing a seed of discord?
If what Bwezani did to Mutale and some ExCo members in his so called confidential report to Keith is not confusion, what is it?
That report set the tone for suspicions, mistrust and chaos within the FAZ ExCo. An honest and sincere person should have rejected such an operation particularly that it involved people he himself regarded as friends.
Yet, he was to show up on social media with a pious disposition to cast aspersions that the reality I published is a rumor that was causing discontent among FAZ officials. How callous can one be?
The wise say, ‘tondolo musuma’ (silence is golden). There’s no need for Bwezani to respond to everything I write particularly that he was not mentioned anywhere. Who are you trying to please? At what cost?
It’s clear there’s an issue between FAZ 1 & FAZ 2. This we all know is true and we must work towards a solution not quietly trying to fuel the chaos.
For the avoidance of any doubt, attached is a report Rodwell Bwezani Mbewe carried out only two months after the FAZ election in May 2025.
This is a man who wants to appear so innocent and saintly yet one of those at the center of creating the drama instead of helping manage one’s personality issues.
