No one has outshone Levy Mwanawasa yet- Hicks Sikazwe

No one has outshone Levy Mwanawasa yet

Hicks Sikazwe

LAST week as Zambia eulogised in memory of the country’s third president Levy Mwanawasa, images of how I knew him vividly came to the fore.

Many knew him as a good Ndola based lawyer. He tackled some of the most complex of cases from foreigners involved in what President Kenneth Kaunda called economic sabotage to the treason accused.

He was initially a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Most members of my family belong to the same religious group. So whenever I was dragged to go and attend some of the circuit gatherings I would spot him there.

In the early 1980s when I joined  the Times of Zambia, though I was not a court reporter whenever there was what bosses took as a big hearing, I was asked to help out.

Covering Mwanawasa making legal arguments was a marvel of an experience. Later when I moved to Kitwe around 1987 Dr Kaunda cracked down on business people, both local and foreign, who were accused of fraudulent deals involving mines.

Mostly those arrested in the clampdown found themselves as clients of  Mwanawasa. Second national president Frederick Chiluba, while he was head of the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), Kaunda detained him. He was rescued by Mwanawasa.

Even when Kaunda appointed him Solicitor General  his law firm continued to defend the most sensitive and difficult cases. Kaunda had no option but to relieve him of his duties and he went back to serve the people.

When the surge for multiparty politics struck he was elected in absentia as legal chairman if the new Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) at the first ever national symposium in Lusaka called to spearhead the lobby for the return to plural politics in Zambia.

Mwanawasa popularised court injunctions which were>>CONTINUE>>  https://mastmediazm.com/2025/08/no-one-has-outshone-levy-mwanawasa-yet/