THE ONLY BLACK PRESIDENT WITH A WHITE VICE-PRESIDENT
… After Barack Obama, I Am The Only Chifita With A Muzungu Veep – Sata
Hey Folks,
In the last few days from October 28, most Zambians spent time remembering the life of Zambia’s fifth president, Michael Chilufya Sata, to mark 12 years since his passing.
Different people said or wrote different views in remembering his legacy.
As we start a new month and in closing this chapter of eulogies to Sata on his 12th death anniversary, it just occurred to me that Sata’s story about his ascendancy to State House as Republican President cannot be told without mentioning one guy, Guy Scott.
These two fiercely loved each other politically, even personally!
While the rest of the country saw a political clown in Sata, Dr Guy Scott saw a future president in him; and it came to pass.
“If you ask anybody who had worked with him what they think of him, they have high opinions. He is a practical man and as they say in Eastern Province, he is a doer,” Guy Scott told me in 2004 (Conversations Part 1). “He gets things done. A lot of people fear him because he sees through them very easily. If you are pretending that you have done something which you haven’t done or if you are pretending to be what you are not, Michael is a good practical psychologist who will see that you are lying.
“His roughness when he wants to get things done is not a prelude to violence. I have heard people talk about his violence but all that is kachepa. He wins libel cases against people who claim to have been beaten by him. I will be happier in a country that is run by somebody like him.”
And when Sata was ultimately elected President of Zambia in 2011, he appointed Dr Guy Scott as his Vice-President. From time to time, he would joke about this rare political occurrence in Zambia.
“Apart from Barack Obama, I am the only chifita, black President with a muzungu (white) Vice-President,” Sata would boast.
In Guy Scott’s own memoir, Adventures in Zambian Politics (2019), he notes that when he thanked Sata for the Vice Presidency as a tribute to non-racial nation-building, Sata jokingly retorted: “My foot… I just want to destroy Obama’s monopoly as the only black president in the world with a muzungu chola boy [white bag-carrier]. And you’ll do.”
And when Sata died on October 28, 2014, Dr Guy Scott made history by ascending into the highest office of the land and became President for 90 days, as the country organised for a Presidential by-election to elect Sata’s successor.
While Zambians took the transition calmly, viewing it as a natural constitutional step, the rest of the world was stunned. Major global news networks like the BBC, CNN, and Al Jazeera erupted in a media flurry.
International commentators were fascinated by the “historic anomaly” of a white man of Scottish descent becoming the first white head of state on mainland Africa since F.W. De Klerk left office in post-apartheid South Africa.
For the global press, it was an astonishing curiosity. For Zambia, it was simply the smooth, non-racial maturity of the country’s democracy.
So, Guy Scott scored twice. First, as the first and only muzungu Vice-President to a black President and second as the first and only muzungu to become President of an independent African country.
This is how I chose to humanise these two legends in Zambia’s political history. Both Sata and Guy were intensely humorous and charismatic leaders.
When Sata died, Guy’s regret was that he outlived Sata because there would be no one to crack jokes at his funeral.
Napita mukwai!
Amos Malupenga
Author
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Picture caption: President Sata and Vice-President Scott at State House during a state function, 2012. Picture by Eddie Mwanaleza.