FUN FACT
Did you know that veteran politician Sikota Wina, at the height of his romance with Princess Nakatindi in the early 1970s disappeared from his ministerial duties for several days until Dr Kenneth Kaunda used the intelligence wing to locate him?
(For details, follow the excerpt below from Conversations with Memorable Personalities)
Amos Malupenga:
Some of your old friends tell me that it is true that you used to be very popular among women and that one time you disappeared from Dr Kaunda when you were still minister. Dr Kaunda was busy looking for you because you just disappeared without getting permission. I am told he failed to locate you until he asked officers from the intelligence to find you and they located you at Lusaka Hotel with the lady who is now your wife…
Sikota Wina:
(He laughed and said:) No, it was Victoria Hotel. It is now called Fairview Hotel. That was the time when our romance was at its highest.
You know President Kaunda liked me a lot and I regard him as a parent. When I married, I went humbly to request him to be the guest of honour. He was very happy to do that and he came to the Mulungushi International Conference Centre and sent the crowd rolling when he advised me publicly that from now on, ‘no more breasts’.
But I nearly had a big difference with him because after my wedding, I took my wife to Lealui to the Litunga to report this marriage and for me to get my proper title as the Prince Consort.
That can only be conferred upon me by the Litunga himself. That took us another week. From there we went to our home in Sesheke for another feast. From there we went to my original home at Namboma. This took about one month, going from one ceremony to another ceremony.
In the meantime, Dr Kaunda was looking for me because we had a national council coming and he liked me to be near him because I used to bring in a lot of ideas. So he left a message here [at his house] and a government flight that immediately I come back from what he called ‘gallivanting’, I must be told to catch that plane and follow him to Mfuwe where he went on holiday to prepare for the national council.
When I arrived here [his house], I was told by the security people that you have to leave immediately. So I flew to Mfuwe and when I arrived I found him standing in the doorway and he was angry. He told me ‘you are not the first one to get married. Where have you been, in the mean time the nation has been looking for you. What’s wrong with you? Don’t you know there is a job to be done?’
You know when Kenneth Kaunda got angry he literally got angry and there I was facing him. Afterwards, he kept quiet for some minutes just looking at me until he got over it. He was like that. He is a short tempered man but over the years he managed to control his temper. I don’t know how he managed to do that.
After a few minutes it went off and he said ‘get in’. So I got into the lodge and he said ‘breakfast young man?’ I said ‘no Sir I had breakfast before I came’.
He said ‘alright what can you tell me?’ I said ‘no Sir according to the way I was brought up in our tradition, when a father is angry you don’t reply. So I am going to write a letter to reply’. He said ‘you will excuse me, I am angry because I value you. If I don’t value you, I wouldn’t be wasting my breath. So I am not angry for nothing’.
That was Dr. Kaunda. He had a lot of time for me, and I learnt a lot from him. That’s why when his son Wezi was shot dead, despite the word that went round to all MMD leaders that they should not attend the funeral, my wife and I, without even a second thought, just drove to Kenneth Kaunda’s house and entered the crowd. Dr. Kaunda just hugged me and the crowd started crying. This was a bond between us irrespective of what happened later on.
(An excerpt from Conversations with Memorable Personalities)
Picture below: Sikota Wina with his late wife Princess Nakatindi Wina