Amos narrates how he stepped in to guide the country in Lungu’s absence
By Peggy Mwansakilwa,
23rd March 2025
Lifestyle
Former Special Assistant to the President for Press and Public Relations Amos Chanda on May 22, 2019 – Picture by Tenson Mkhala
Former press aide to president Edgar Lungu, Amos Chanda, has narrated the many high-stakes situations he found himself in during his time at State House.
From navigating the local media and ‘setting’ news agenda, to making presidential decisions, Chanda’s influence under Lungu’s presidency comes to the fore in this story as he shares insights into his time working for the former head of state.
During a recent interview with Diggers Life, Amos shared many crises that he had to deal with, and one unfolded while Lungu was deep in the wilderness of Mfuwe, unreachable, as the nation teetered on the edge of disaster.
Lungu was on vacation in South Luangwa, immersed in the tranquility of the wild, when a crisis erupted.
Power to Mopani had been cut, and KCM faced severe restrictions. The consequences were dire, if normal supply wasn’t restored, Mufulira Mine risked catastrophic flooding.
Thousands of jobs were at stake, 1,000 in Mufulira alone, another thousand in Kitwe.
The two biggest mining giants of Zambia were on the brink of total shutdown, locked in a bitter dispute with the Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) over unpaid debts.
Meanwhile, in Lusaka, another storm was brewing. Then opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema had just been released from prison and was holding a thanksgiving prayer session at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.
The police, citing the ongoing State of Emergency, moved in and surrounded the church. The country was on edge.
Time was slipping away. The gravity of the situation demanded presidential intervention, but Lungu was deep in the Luangwa Valley, completely cut off.
The only means of reaching him, a satellite phone, was useless, as he had ventured into the heart of the valley, fishing in a remote location.
With the nation’s economy hanging in the balance and no word from the president, Chanda took an audacious gamble.
“The president this time is on vacation in Mfuwe, in South Luangwa, and power is cut off to Mopani, restricted to KCM. There is a danger that if the normal supply is not restored, Mufulira Mine would probably flood. There is a conflict between two private entities, CEC is a private entity, and so is Mopani under Glencore. There are 1,000 jobs immediately at risk in Mufulira alone, plus another thousand estimated in Kitwe. Before this finishes, there is a power supply restriction to KCM. The two biggest mining companies are about to go into zero production because of a debt they genuinely owe to CEC, and there is a dispute. At the same time, the opposition leader is just being released from prison and is holding a thanksgiving prayer session at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. The police go and surround the cathedral because the State of Emergency is still in force. Therefore, it is a gathering that is proscribed, prevented. I have difficulties reaching the president because we could reach him by satellite phone, but he had gone into the depressed valleys of the Luangwa Valley because he was fishing. He had not gone on holiday for a long time. Through consultations, it is decided that a statement from State House is necessary on these two key issues. I prepare the notes and send them to the president for clearance, but it shows that he hasn’t read them. I ask the Air Commander to take the physical copy there. Hours are ticking away, he could reach where he was, at Nyavu Lodge, by a fixed-wing aircraft. By the time they reach him, CEC would probably have switched off power to Mopani,” he recalls.
“I take the risk and call a press conference in Twangale Park. The idea is to reduce the significance of this statement in case it is wrong; therefore, it is not made at State House. I call the media and say the switching off of power to the two most important mines would probably result in a disaster where life will be threatened and economic interests are at stake. The president would take the decision that would safeguard the greatest interests of the people. Can Mopani and CEC reach a logical conclusion over this matter notwithstanding the commercial interests? The government does not interfere with the private sector, but in the event of a crisis occurring, I can assure the two private entities that there will be intervention from the president on the side of the people. With regard to the ongoing siege at the Cathedral, cognisant of the fact that the country is still under the State of Emergency, I expect the police to exercise good judgement and ask themselves whether it is sensible to place the church under siege, regardless of who is in there. In my judgement as press secretary to the president, I think I can advise the IG to reconsider that decision. The police demobilised while I was speaking. The IG did not know whether that instruction was an order from the president.”
Chanda’s gamble paid off. The mining giants reached a temporary truce.
“Mopani and CEC reached a conclusion to delay the declaration of the dispute for seven days. Within those seven days, the president appointed Hon Mutati and me to oversee an agreement, and an agreement was signed on plain paper at Intercontinental Hotel. Those were Glencore directors, and Mopani signed the agreement. Power was not cut to Mopani. When I did all these things, the president came online. At that point, he was with a very close friend of mine, Valden Findlay, who was also a close friend of the president.
When the president watched the news, he asked Valden to call me and say, ‘Thank him. He is excellent, and I expect most of my staff to have the ingenuity to deal with these things and make sure that things are done in this manner. He served the country. Thank him for this.’ Later on, he called me himself. So those are judgement calls you make. I imposed a settlement on two private companies without a command economy, because those things are only possible where the economy is under the control of the state. CEC is private. So, what is a typical day in the life of a press aide? It is unpredictable. What is the sort of working relationship? I tell you that it was a relationship of trust. He trusted my judgement, and those were heavy decisions to make,” Amos declares.
He says the public is not aware of the decisions he made.
“Was I just trained as a journalist to undertake this? My training, now, when I tell you that maybe I went too early into government, I regret. Maybe it was okay that I did. Then comes in a thread again, and they say, ‘He is a press aide.’ I don’t know about others, but particularly me, when you ask what people say about me that they don’t know, it is that they do not know some of the crises that I prevented in greater detail. What I am talking about will be in my memoir. But look, Hon Mutati is there to tell this story. See, when I’m talking, I always name people because these stories have people behind them, the Glencore directors, Mr Hichilema. He is there to tell the story that he did not know how police on horses had to leave the Cathedral because I said so. I was also very conscious not to usurp the powers of the president. Can I command the police against the will of the president? No. The vice president was in post, but it was my judgement that even with the State of Emergency, it was wrong for the military and police on horses to surround the Cathedral, because that now becomes a conflict between the Church and the State,” he says.
“Mr Hichilema went and addressed and thanked the country in the Cathedral under the State of Emergency, where three or four people couldn’t gather without the permission of a constable. The church service ended, and there was no riot.”
Reflecting on his time in public service, Chanda says his most notable appointment was being named Lungu’s special assistant, even before he was officially declared president.
“Two appointments, one as press secretary, which was revised as deputy press secretary by Michael Sata later, as press secretary at Zambia High Commission in London, and later I was recalled back as deputy, recalled as deputy high commissioner in London. But the greatest appointment, obviously, of them all, the biggest, was appointment as special assistant to the president Lungu, and that was the first appointment of his presidency because he appointed me when I was seated with him in his house at Lewanika, when the chief justice and the chairman of the Electoral Commission of Zambia told him he had crossed the threshold, and therefore whatever result was being awaited could not overturn the lead and margin. So, there was Harry Kalaba in the room. So, he said, ‘Ba Harry Kalaba, aba ebo mwakulabomba nabo,’ like, ‘Ah, what do you mean, your excellency?’ Then he said, ‘If I say ebomwakulabomba nabo, it means I have reappointed you into some government role. This is going to be my press secretary.’ So, I was appointed by Edgar Lungu before he was declared as president, and he told me the next appointment would be somebody who is going to take a robust approach for the constitutional reform commission. I did not understand that, but at the swearing-in ceremony at Heroes Stadium, he appointed Hon Ngosa Simbyakula as Minister of Justice. Then I understood. So, my appointment was first, and Hon Simbyakula’s was second,” he recalls.
“It was a great honor to be considered in that manner, but I think it’s something he had thought about long before that. Some people say it was abrupt, others say it was a strong lobby from powerful Bemba figures, but I think it’s something he had thought about for a long time. I had worked with him. He is a true, true green-blooded member of the Sata Academy. Many people would say many things about Edgar Lungu. He was in the inner circle for Mr Sata. There was a so-called Sata Academy, Wynter was one of them, Sylvia, Minister of Lands now, Masebo, Mr Chikwanda was another. The academy was very big, and within that academy, there were sleeper cells. There was a media team, sometimes you didn’t know, three, four media teams that Mr, Sata had, but they were all under there. So, one of the highest points of my career was that appointment. It was quite exciting, challenging, but it also allowed me to express my full professional potential. It provided a platform and an opportunity to do that.”
He shares that a typical day as Press Aide at State House was challenging, especially that former president Lungu never liked to speak to the media
“A typical day in State House as Press Aide was always a difficult one. You started from a worst-case scenario and ended up with the best-case scenario. There was a lot of propaganda against candidate Lungu, and it continued into his presidency, so he was starting off from the back foot. He did not like speaking to the media, as you know, so the burden came to me. I knew exactly what I was signing up for. So, the typical day was that The Daily Mail, The Times of Zambia, I subscribed to all media, including private ones, and I would get the newspaper at 5. The latest would be 6. Some of them came earlier, like The Daily Mail, which came to my house sometimes at midnight because they printed early,” he said.
When asked if that was why he always knew the news before it happened, Amos said you can’t beat experience.
“[Laughs] You know, you can’t beat experience. And remember what I told you about my induction into State House? As a junior reporter, four months on the job, I was able to cover the First Lady. That was a big job because you have access to many things beyond the First Lady. So, I understood presidential communication very well from those early stages. I understood the risk factors, and I also understood how to preempt a problem. So I would know quite clearly. The reason why I’m laughing is that the president, twice or thrice, and the First Lady, Esther Lungu, asked that question, ‘How do you know what is in the news before the news occurs?’ Then I said to president Lungu one time, and I said to Ba Esther on another, and I said to Honourable Chilufya at some point, ‘Look, sometimes the news doesn’t break, you have to break it.’ So I would know the risk factors of what people were planning to put in the newspaper against the president. In place of that negative news, I had to break some other news to brush that off,” he said.
He says he wasn’t manipulating the news, but rather calculating it.
“I’ll give you another example. It’s not manipulation, but it’s the information management. The president is under siege, unfairly, for that matter. Newspapers are attacking, and I would know this is unfair. Then the diplomatic community joins in. Then the president has taken the decision that speaks to the interests of those Europeans in a manner where you can only compare it to, he says, ‘I am no longer going to sign any death penalty.’ So he is transforming the country into a de facto moratorium state where the death penalty is being abolished. But because it’s in the Constitution, you need a referendum to remove anything that is in the Constitution. So the president takes that decision. At the same time, unknown to us, the police decide that they will be arresting Mr Fred M’membe on credible grounds of some offence, I have forgotten them. This is the moment the president is completely under siege on false allegations, on human rights and other things. So the arrest has nothing to do with it. The president has nothing to do with it, but it will occur, and therefore, the Western capitals will be, ‘Lungu arresting journalists’, that is a serious problem in Western capitals and in the diplomatic communities here, to arrest the journalists for their work, regardless of the merit for the police action,” he says.
“So I know what will be in the news because, at that point, I have access to state intelligence, the president would have shared with me. And therefore, we know that the biggest journalist in the country will be arrested. And therefore, I would tell what kind of news there will be tomorrow. So what do I do? ‘Mr president, we have two weeks from now a visit to Mukobeko [Maximum Security Prison], is that programme still on?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Why don’t we make it today?’ Do you know, I’m trying to kill the news by superimposing greater news on bad news. We’ll go to Mukobeko, being present among prisoners facing death sentences, and then the president announces the removal of the death penalty. Because I have worked in the diplomatic service, I know what death officers in the Danish Embassy, British High Commission will concentrate on that day. Is it the arrest of Fred M’membe or the removal of the death penalty? So I create the news, where Edgar Lungu is in the news as stopping the death penalty, and Fred M’membe’s arrest is a small story in the corner.”
He says news doesn’t break, sometimes, you have to break it.
“So, you see, the news doesn’t break sometimes, you break it. So sometimes, I came in for severe criticism from my colleagues that I’m manipulating the news. Was it a news story that the president would go into? By the way, the first president to enter Mukobeko under the gate there, we created images. He went in there, and the prisoners were cheering. So the news for that week was that Zambia is now a de facto moratorium state. They don’t kill people there by hanging. We are at the same levels as Brussels, London, America, where there is no death penalty. So now, manipulative in what sense? Maybe I made the case for Fred M’membe worse because no one cared about him in the cells because there was this big news. The attention of Western governments was on this bigger news. So I calculated the news, but I worked for it. I was the wordsmith. Did I do anything illegal? But I could tell, on a Sunday, usually, how should this week look like.”
He says a press aide’s job is undefined.
“A typical day of a press aide is undefined because of my experience in the foreign service and in the diplomatic service, I created and maintained a network of contacts in embassies. They would tell me what they think about the president, some of it, horrible stuff, and they were just waiting for it to come out in the newspapers before they could make a public comment. So I could figure out how they were planning their week against the president. So, against that plan, I planned a week. I know on a Sunday, that you call it a dry day, isn’t it? There are no stories. You saw me in hotel lobbies like this abruptly, and I would make announcements in the space where embassies wanted to fill negative news on a Monday, and there was a big announcement from State House on things that exist and not things that didn’t exist. So, if you like, I pushed negative stories without killing them. The newspapers themselves chose what to publish, whether to ignore a press secretary who is making a fundamental announcement about government policy or to go fish out for a story on an existing or non-existing drinking spree of the president,” he said.
“So, there were stories I knew I could not kill by physically calling editors and saying, ‘Why don’t you think about dropping this?’ In place of that, I exchanged the bigger story for a smaller one. But some of them, I created a suspense situation. I created doubt whether that story was actually true or not, and the newspapers would hold on to it. And as they’re holding on to it, I would find something to replace it. So, a typical day was always crisis management because this is a president who was so unfairly criticised, even before he made the first mistake. They put five mistakes ahead of him, so it was crisis management starting point. There were times when he started off on a positive note and ended there. So, the good thing, and one of the greatest successes, is that with great success, I managed to set the agenda week after week. I plotted three points, and I hit all the points. It became so dangerous sometimes that the level of success was frightening. So, sometimes I would allow things to play out naturally, rather than the way we had set them.”
When asked why the current communication at State House is failing to set trends like his, Amos explains that it tends to be more defensive than proactive.
“Not to compare myself with them, but because I’m a consumer of news, I can answer confidently that I see them more on the defensive rather than being upfront. [laughs] I feel ethically constrained to compare myself. They can do much more proactively than in a defensive posture. They can transform the paradigm, maybe to a ratio of 80:20. Let them try 80 per cent proactive and 20 per cent reactivity, defensive mechanism. Look, the president was upfront in wanting to change the Constitution, very clear, he was upfront, but the government looked to be on the back foot; it’s defensive. How did that shift in 24 hours? Because no one talked about the Constitution, therefore, the president had an agenda, and he announces. Within 24 hours, the government is on the back foot. How did that happen? Because when he is announcing, I would have thought that the whole communication setup is lined up to project that. But I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m just curious to see how a proactive position set the whole government in the defensive mode almost instantly,” he wonders.
He reflects on taking a proactive role by delaying president Lungu’s flight to prevent him from speaking to the media after a controversial statement about judges.
“In our time, let me give you an example of being proactive. The president is in North Western Province at the provincial conference, party conference, or internal PF party conference. The late Kungo is being elected there, and he makes an announcement: ‘If the judges rule against me, there will be chaos in this country.’ A very controversial statement. You don’t know whether he is threatening judges or trying to influence the outcome. He has said it; it is on camera; you can’t change what he has said. I did not travel, one of the few trips I did not travel with him, so at 13:15 hours, I’m listening to the news. I do not believe what I’m hearing until I hear his voice, because they put his voice there. So I ask the people who were with him, legal advisor Mutale Lukangaba, I ask him, ‘What time are you arriving?’ ‘Oh, we are stopping over in Solwezi. I understand that journalists have lined up in Solwezi to clarify and ask, so that that story is embedded.’ So I tell Lukangaba, ‘No media access to the president. Do what you can to prevent that.’ Then I call the air commander. So I’m going back to a typical day of a press aide in State House, when I say it’s undefined. Eric Chimese says, ‘Look, he can be here by 16:30 or 17:00.’ Then there is a standard protocol, if the president arrives at 18:00, one minute after 18:00, he can’t give interviews. In our time, those were established protocols. So now, the air commander and the press aide, without the permission of the president, decide to delay the flight so that the president can arrive at 17:50. As the plane is taxing, he can step out of the plane by 18:01, therefore there should be no interviews on the tarmac. So, this is a typical day. It is never written in any textbook in any university,” he says.
“Because I was in the VIP lounge at City Airport, journalists asked me to clarify what the president said. I said, ‘No, no, when he has come, we will clarify. I wasn’t there.’ You cannot clarify a voice that people have heard and seen. So the president comes; I don’t interrupt the speaking podium. He is fought there; only I know what I want to do with the president. Like, ‘Oh, Mr president, the vice president has a very urgent briefing for you.’ So there is a legitimate reason to keep the president away from the media because you can’t say the journalists were more important than the vice president. So the president and the vice president go into the briefing. Then I tell the journalists, ‘I have a statement to make. What the president meant.’ There was a serious tension because the media was running about this president interfering with the judiciary. That’s the worst you would want a lawyer president to be accused of. Then I tell the journalists what the president meant. He is saying, given where he sits as president, he sees a lot of things. He is aware of information unrelated to the judgement the ConCourt will make, for or against. He is aware of other machinations to create chaos. That’s the chaos he was talking about, not the decisions of the judges. So, the president’s statement that he is threatening the judges is subdued by my explanation that the president was talking about something else. And as I say that, I also make another announcement unrelated to that. So journalists have two stories: the clarification and a new announcement about something. But between me and the president, clearly, there was a mess in the statement that was made in North Western, but that’s the job of a press aide, to be proactive.”
He says the job is thankless because you’re never thanked for preventing crises.
“It’s undefined, it’s not easy, and thankless most of the time, because you are not thanked for the crises you have prevented, because the public never lived to see the crises,” he says.
When asked about his working relationship with the former president, Amos describes him as very trusting.
“He was a very trusting president because he would give you broad parameters. What you do with that freedom is up to you, and he will guide when it’s absolutely necessary. He will give you a broad theme or say, ‘There is a problem in this section, what do we do? Your excellency, ministers must speak more than they’re doing. Allow them more space, nag them, they are not talking. Oh, devise a communication strategy for this specific thing.’ And he will only come in when it’s absolutely necessary, so the working relationship was excellent,” he says.
“I’ll give an example. Hon Chilufya comes and tells the president, ‘The cholera situation is worse than what is being reported. This is probably the worst since 1991. What are the options?’ Dr Chilufya says, ‘The epicenter of this epidemic is actually Soweto Market. If we don’t act in 72 hours, this will triple. We can’t contain it. We need to disinfect that whole area between Freedom Way until Los Angeles Police Station in Kanyama. To disinfect it, this whole area must be vacant.’ Now, this is half of the CBD as we know it, City Market and Soweto Market. This is the single busiest trading center anywhere in the country. To empty a space like that, the outcome is that there will be a riot, which will be a toxic mix with the cholera outbreak, and probably the government could fail under the weight of that kind of instability. But if we don’t do it, the cholera will still kill those traders anyway. And if these deaths jump from hundreds, Mr president, to thousands, it could quickly jump into millions. You could still not be president if 500,000 people die of cholera.”
Amos says but there was no State of Emergency in place.
“But there is no state of emergency for him to send the military. The only other option is either to disinfect that with the help of the army but only in the manner where the army will use force as though there is a state of emergency. And there is tension now, how to execute that. I’m defining what was my working relationship with this president. I’ve said ‘very trusting,’ and he would delegate and give you broad themes or parameters within which to operate. Then Dr Chilufya brings a statement where the president must read and address the nation at 19:30 with these measures. But those measures will appear like declaring a state of emergency. He doesn’t have the time to go to Parliament, and with cholera, every hour the numbers were shooting up. Chilufya had a plan, exactly how to get these numbers to plateau and stabilise, and then they would begin to go down. Within that, the closure of the market was inevitable. Back and forth, a lot of internal squabbling about the strategy. I escaped State House; I went to a desk house. So we agreed that there would be a ministerial committee, there is Vincent Mwale, Local Government, there was Hon. Sylvia Chalikosa, Office of the VEEP. There was a cluster of ministers. So I tell Dr Chilufya, ‘It’s not going to happen. He is not going to address the nation for fear of escalating the tension, but he has authorised the military.’ He says, ‘No, no, the reason why I came to State House, I wanted this to carry the weight of State House. So when I’m there addressing the nation and ministers are flanking me, I get the beating that I’m stepping on ministers,’” he shares.
“That thing was imposed on me right there. It’s a question of judgement. As he is sitting there, the phone is saying, ‘If we terminate this vector, health officials are telling me, if we don’t stop this flood from Kanyama coming into the drainage on Lumumba Road and flowing into Matero, that’s why the cases have jumped in Matero and Mandevu in real time.’ So now it’s a question of the press aide and the minister of health making a judgement call, whether we are wrong or not, let’s try that and stop it. Okay, he put the address that was to be read by the president. I was not reading that; I was speaking from my head. Where Chilufya was saying, ‘The president has authorized the army,’ I said, ‘The military may be deployed into major trading centers in Lusaka, including Soweto.’ Now, that’s playing with words, ‘may’ in trading centers. So marketeers, in the early hours tomorrow, are advised to carefully engage, and they may interact with the military at various points in a manner that is unusual. I was announcing the deployment of the army without saying, ‘We have deployed.’ And you saw, the military took charge. Within 48 hours, cholera cases went down dramatically, and we dealt with the 2018 cholera situation in a manner that no other had. I said Chilufya was more successful. He says, ‘No, no, Mr Sata was more successful as minister of health than he was. He even turned his position.’”
He says because of the health minister and ZAF commander, cholera was contained.
“The heroes of that thing were him and Eric Chimese. ZAF used the majority of the military there. We cut the transmission points. Without the military, it would not have happened. And the epicenter, what we discovered in there, that was some of my lowest points in my career. You could cry. We found toilets in the middle of a fish market. We found drums that were used as toilets in the middle of the fish market in Soweto. Something that looked like decomposing bodies. Again, I put a lid on that kind of communication. It can’t go to a public that is already so annoyed, terrified, beaten, destabilised, humiliated by this thing. So we put a lid on that because we were managing a crisis, and we did not need to demoralise the public any further. So I’m saying, it is thankless most of the time. That crisis was prevented, but people didn’t see what I worked so hard to prevent. So I’m not being thanked,” he says.
Amos recounts a moment when, in president Lungu’s absence, he was thrust into a situation requiring urgent action.
With US Navy SEALs seeking permission to enter Zambian airspace to capture two wanted terrorists, the weight of the decision fell squarely on his shoulders.
“The American Ambassador, Eric Schultz, calls and says something extremely urgent, and the instruction from the State Department is that the US Ambassador himself must speak to the president because he requires special permission for a major incident that may occur now. Now, in diplomatic speak, a major incident is just that, we know what it means. It could be a terrorist attack underway, there could be declarations of war with the neighbours; it’s something serious. Somehow, I couldn’t get through. There were rare moments I couldn’t get to him. He was not in Nkwazi, he was not in State House, he was not at State Lodge. Where was he? [laughs] And his aides too, because there are several layers of his aides, I think the instruction was that even I, at that point, shouldn’t know. But I got to know where he was at some point,” he recalls.
“I go to the American Ambassador. Unfortunately, we don’t have clearance to speak to anyone lower than me, but the matter at hand is such that we may have to speak to you when we judge we can speak to you. And therefore, the presidential communication from Washington, from the White House, had to be dropped down to me to make those decisions. The decision was that the American SEALs, we call them, the American military, was to violate Zambian airspace in order to uplift two terrorists who were about to strike. I’ll withhold the areas for security reasons, but there were two points they were about to hit, and they were on the wanted list for the American military and CIA for a long time. And again, using normal working relationships with the Air Commander, I whispered to him. The only request they made was that if there is this incursion, it is for the Zambian defence forces to do nothing. They didn’t want any help. So, at least the Air Commander monitored whatever happened. They removed those terrorists, took them.”
He says he later got through to the president.
“I got to the president later. What sort of relationship did I have with him? Very trusting. He thanked me for that initiative. The people who would have died were Zambians. The decision to say a foreign power can enter was controversial. If anything went wrong, what would happen to me? But this one went right. Therefore, I’m here to tell the story. When I say oftentimes the job of a press aide is thankless, would I be thanked for a crisis that the public didn’t know? No. So, it is often a tasking, difficult job, thankless most of the time, because people just want to see you winning on TV and in the newspapers. There are a lot of things in the background that come to your attention that you’re not trained to do, but you’re required to do them because it’s a question of judgement. What would I have done if I was of lower judgement at that point? To say, ‘Look, you Americans, why are you asking me to do that?’” shared Amos.
