MICHAEL CHILUFYA SATA: THE KING COBRA WHO TAUGHT ME THAT A PRESIDENT’S WORD MUST NEVER BECOME A HOSTAGE TO HIS OWN PRONOUNCEMENTS- Yehuda ben David

MICHAEL CHILUFYA SATA: THE KING COBRA WHO TAUGHT ME THAT A PRESIDENT’S WORD MUST NEVER BECOME A HOSTAGE TO HIS OWN PRONOUNCEMENTS ️ THE PEOPLE’S POLITICAL SCIENCE {SPECIAL EDITION}

There are encounters in the peregrinations of political life whose intellectual dividends transcend the ephemeral exhilaration of electoral triumphs, ministerial appointments and presidential ascendancy. They become indelible inscriptions upon one’s political consciousness. My encounters with His Excellency Michael Chilufya Sata Z”L, the fifth President of the Republic of Zambia, belong to this extraordinary category. Behind the formidable political sobriquet of King Cobra stood a man whose perspicacity, instinctive understanding of ordinary citizens and uncompromising philosophy of executive responsibility left an enduring impression upon my conception of statesmanship.

I recall one particular occasion during my parliamentary campaign for Kasama Central when President Sata and I co featured on a live programme at Radio Mano in Kasama. I was a young parliamentary aspirant, intellectually audacious, politically exuberant and determined to challenge the prevailing policy orthodoxies of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) government.

During that broadcast, I subjected the government’s development policies to vigorous scrutiny. I proceeded to illustrate how international partnerships could catalyse national economic transformation, invoking the construction of the Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) as an example of visionary cooperation between our founding President, Dr Kenneth David Kaunda Z”L, and his Tanzanian counterpart, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere Z”L.

My argument was persuasive. My exposition was fluent. My political convictions were unequivocal, but I had committed an error of omission. I had neglected to explain that the construction of TAZARA was financed through an interest free Chinese government loan. China agreed in 1970 to provide 988 million yuan, repayable over thirty years, for the railway and associated infrastructure. That omission would become the subject of one of the most consequential political tutorials of my life.

Following the broadcast, we proceeded to King’s Lodge, where we later shared dinner. President Sata turned towards me and delivered an observation whose significance I appreciate even more today.

“Young man, I must say that I am very impressed with your political acumen. Your future is bright.”

He explained that he had initially underestimated my ability to communicate with rural communities in their own language, with such clarity, spontaneity and command of the issues affecting their everyday existence. There was an interesting antecedent to his observation. When I initially sought adoption as a parliamentary candidate, my interest had been in Lukashya Constituency, which had been represented by Hon. Lupando Mwape Z”L, former Vice President of the Republic of Zambia.

President Sata had reservations about my suitability for such a rural constituency. He believed its parliamentary representative required an intimate understanding of village life, indigenous communication and the quotidian struggles of rural households. He knew that I worked extensively with the Catholic Church across Zambia’s dioceses as a development consultant, preparing development programmes, mobilising financial resources and supporting institutional initiatives. However, he had apparently associated that professional background with bureaucratic and technocratic work rather than grassroots political mobilisation.

What he had not fully appreciated was that I was myself a product of rural Zambia, conversant with its cultural idioms, linguistic subtleties and socioeconomic realities. That evening, he acknowledged that his earlier estimation had been incomplete. Then came the lesson. He returned to my TAZARA exposition and pointed out the missing financing arrangement. He explained that a politician could possess extraordinary eloquence, formidable intellectual faculties and admirable intentions, but an insufficiently researched pronouncement could compromise the credibility of the entire argument.

His counsel, which I reproduce hereunder in substance from memory, was unequivocal.

“Never surrender the independence of your mind. Never place your intellectual clarity in servitude to political expediency. Know precisely what you want to accomplish, assemble your facts meticulously, and speak with conviction.”

He referred to his experience serving under President Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba Z”L. According to Sata, Chiluba allowed ministers considerable latitude to articulate and advance the policy programmes of their respective portfolios. Ministers became publicly identifiable with the policies they administered because they understood their mandates and could explain their objectives.

Sata believed that political leadership demanded clarity of purpose, intellectual self possession and administrative accountability. Then he returned to my omission concerning TAZARA. He warned that once a politician makes an inadequately informed public pronouncement, the subsequent exercise of explaining, qualifying, retracting or reconstructing its meaning can become an interminable spectacle of political embarrassment.

The politician begins saying, “What I actually meant was…” or “That is not precisely what I said…” or “My statement was misunderstood…” By then, the original pronouncement has already entered the public domain. A leader who habitually requires explanatory rehabilitation of his own pronouncements risks becoming the principal author of his own credibility deficit. That was the essence of Sata’s admonition.

It was a lesson in epistemic discipline, the obligation to know before speaking, and in the moral seriousness of public communication. Our conversations also exposed me to his philosophy of education. President Sata was particularly dissatisfied with an educational arrangement that permitted large numbers of children to leave school after Grade Seven or Grade Nine without sufficient practical preparation for productive economic participation.

He envisaged an education system in which secondary schooling would provide a more comprehensive foundation, with greater emphasis on technical competencies, vocational preparation and the productive application of knowledge. He advocated the phasing out of the basic school classification in favour of a more coherent progression towards secondary education. On one occasion, I challenged him about the administrative implications.

“Mr President,” I asked, “you are saying that basic schools will be phased out. How exactly will you accomplish this?”

King Cobra looked directly into my eyes. His response was characteristically emphatic. He explained that a President must first know the destination towards which he intends to take the country. Having determined the policy objective, he must pronounce it clearly, establish an implementation timetable and hold the responsible public officers accountable. If the President decided that basic schools must become secondary schools within a specified period, he said, the responsible officials would be expected to implement that decision. Failure to perform would attract consequences.

“My words are my decree,” he declared.

I remember the force of that statement. My hair stood on end. Naturally, presidential authority in a constitutional republic operates within the law, parliamentary appropriations and the administrative capacities of the state. The political philosophy Sata was communicating was one of executive ownership and the solemnity of presidential undertakings. It was an illustration of the distinction that students of political science must appreciate between the constitutional authority vested in an office and the administrative responsibility accompanying its exercise.

When Michael Chilufya Sata eventually became President in September 2011, I had already resigned from Parliament and departed from the Patriotic Front. Nevertheless, I continued observing his administration with the perspective of someone who had participated in the formative intellectual and policy discussions of the party. Together with the late Dr Chileshe Mulenga, I had been deeply involved in the formulation of the Patriotic Front’s manifesto. I therefore understood something of the developmental philosophy underpinning its original policy propositions.

One of Sata’s abiding preoccupations was the remuneration of workers. He was incensed by the indignity of Zambians receiving exploitative wages in their own country. His political rhetoric concerning minimum wages and labour protections was forceful, repetitive and comprehensible to employers and employees alike.

I recall the atmosphere following his electoral victory. In trading areas such as Kamwala, there was palpable apprehension among employers about the impending enforcement of labour standards. My recollection is that some businesses began reviewing wages, employment contracts and compliance arrangements even before his inauguration.

His administration subsequently pursued adjustments to minimum wages, public sector remuneration and personal income tax thresholds. Sata wanted the earnings of ordinary workers to occupy a prominent place in national economic policy. He also believed that infrastructure was indispensable to productive transformation. The Link Zambia 8000 and Pave Zambia 2000 initiatives reflected an ambitious programme of road construction, rehabilitation and urban connectivity. He wanted economic corridors opened, commercial activity stimulated and communities connected to markets and public services.

I particularly remember his insistence that road infrastructure should accommodate pedestrians. He challenged the assumption that engineering qualifications alone guaranteed an adequate understanding of the social purposes of infrastructure. Why, he demanded in substance, should a modern road be constructed without proper provision for people walking alongside it? His argument was that infrastructure must serve the entire population, including citizens who cannot afford motor vehicles.

It was a striking illustration of his practical understanding of development. A road is more than asphalt, drainage and engineering specifications. It is an instrument of economic mobility, public safety and human accessibility. Sata’s developmental ambitions also extended to railway modernisation. His administration recruited Professor Clive Chirwa, a Zambian engineering academic with international experience, to lead Zambia Railways. The ambition was to revitalise railway transport, improve freight movement and explore more advanced passenger services.

For me, this episode illuminated another dimension of Sata’s leadership philosophy, namely his willingness to seek specialised expertise beyond the conventional political establishment. It also invites reflection upon the distinction between academic certification and technological invention. Zambia possesses many highly educated citizens. However, the productive value of education cannot be measured exclusively by the accumulation of diplomas, degrees and doctoral titles.

The greater developmental challenge is to translate intellectual attainment into industrial processes, technological innovation, commercially viable enterprises and practical solutions to human problems. Israel offers an example of the relationship between research institutions, technological entrepreneurship, commercialisation and industrial innovation. Its achievements demonstrate the importance of an institutional environment in which knowledge can be transformed into commercially productive applications.

An economy that manufactures qualifications faster than it manufactures technological solutions risks producing an educated population without a commensurate industrial transformation. This was the wider developmental question that Sata’s recruitment of specialised talent brought into focus.

There was, however, another consequential dimension to Sata’s infrastructure programme, namely public borrowing. When Zambia issued its first Eurobond of US$750 million in 2012, followed by a second Eurobond of US$1 billion in 2014, President Sata’s developmental conception was anchored in the productive deployment of borrowed capital. His intention was never to transform sovereign borrowing into a perpetual fiscal encumbrance upon an already impoverished population. He envisaged investments capable of generating their own economic returns and servicing the financial obligations incurred in their establishment.

This was the economic rationale underpinning his ambition to revolutionise Zambia’s railway infrastructure. He recruited Professor Clive Chirwa, an internationally accomplished Zambian engineering scholar and innovator, to spearhead the modernisation of Zambia Railways. The envisaged transformation included an electrified railway system, with modern passenger and freight trains traversing the strategic transport corridor from Livingstone to Chililabombwe.

The economic proposition was that the enhanced transportation of minerals, agricultural commodities, industrial merchandise and passengers would generate sufficient commercial revenues to service the borrowing associated with the investment. In Sata’s conception, the railway was intended to repay the debt incurred in developing it, rather than consigning future generations of Zambians to an interminable succession of taxes for servicing borrowed money.

Tragically, Sata’s deteriorating health and eventual death interrupted the realisation of this developmental ambition. In my assessment, the subsequent abandonment of the railway modernisation vision, coupled with the diversion of public resources towards procurements and expenditures that did not generate comparable productive returns, represented a calamitous departure from the original economic proposition. The anticipated self financing transport infrastructure never materialised as envisaged, while the sovereign debt obligations survived the political leadership that had conceived the programme.

The enduring economic tragedy is that the productive asset intended to generate the resources for extinguishing the debt remained unrealised, while the financial liabilities continued to burden the country. Zambia has consequently spent subsequent years grappling with debt servicing obligations without enjoying the full economic dividends of the railway transformation that Sata had envisaged.

That was Michael Chilufya Sata’s conception of productive borrowing, namely, mobilising capital to construct revenue generating national assets, expanding the productive capacity of the economy and ensuring that public indebtedness translated into measurable economic transformation. A productive transport corridor can stimulate commerce, attract investment and enlarge the tax base.

His death on 28 October 2014 interrupted a presidency that had generated enormous expectations concerning infrastructure, labour policy, educational reform and economic transformation. The lessons I learned still live on. Political eloquence without factual exactitude is an invitation to reputational insolvency.

I remember King Cobra for many things. His formidable political instincts, his extraordinary familiarity with ordinary Zambians, his irrepressible temperament and his determination to translate political authority into visible action. Above all, I remember the man who looked at a young parliamentary aspirant and warned him never to allow an inadequately researched statement to become a lifelong exercise in political explanation.

Years have passed. Governments have come and gone. Political circumstances have changed, but that evening’s lesson remains engraved upon my political consciousness. A statesman must be the master of his words before he can credibly aspire to be the custodian of a nation’s destiny.

May the memory of His Excellency Michael Chilufya Sata Z”L, fifth President of the Republic of Zambia, be a blessing.

Saviour Chishimba
(Yehuda ben David)
Jewish Scholar
Principal and Founder
THE PEOPLE’S ACADEMY