WHY DOES DR. NEVERS MUMBA ATTRACT SO MUCH DEBATE AND CONTROVERSY?
By Kellys Kaunda
I must declare interest – I love Dr. Mumba. I love preachers. Especially, talented ones. And Dr. Mumba is a very talented preacher.
Zambia Shall Be Saved television series endeared me to the man.
Although I am an Adventist with fundamental doctrinal differences with Dr. Mumba, I found his preaching enhancing my faith.
But specifically, as a young and teenage lay preacher in Ndola in the mid-eighties, I found in Nevers Mumba a teacher I never had.
I placed him at the same level with Pastor Cornelius Matandiko that I had the honor and privilege to interpret for during crusades in Ndola.
I placed him at the same level with Pastor C.D. Brooks, one of the most prolific preachers the Adventist Church has ever produced.
Admittedly, this is my weakness when it comes to interrogating Dr. Mumba’s politics.
Can you imagine that even when I was opposed to his joining politics, I went ahead and voted for him when he first contested the Presidency!
I covered the event when he went to Kabwe to launch the National Christian Coalition.
I covered his most-referred-to-statement on the DRC while his boss was out of the country and he seemed to double-down on the same shortly after he received him at the airport.
If my memory serves me right, Mwanawasa made a statement on the same at the airport in response to a question by a reporter.
And shortly after he left, a reporter (I think from The Post) turned to Dr. Mumba for his reaction.
That sealed Dr. Mumba’s fate as his reaction doubled down on his initial remarks which his boss had contradicted.
This is what the public could see. But Dr. Mumba gives his own account of events in his latest book which is available in Zambian book stores.
But, where am I going with all this? Well, I want to state that there are people that are angry, in fact very angry, that Dr. Mumba left the Zambia Shall Be Saved program for politics.
They feel he abandoned them as their source of spiritual nourishment for a vocation that only dishes out toxic material.
Dr. Mumba weaned Zambians off their spiritual breast when they were still babies that needed to continue breast feeding.
While there are other preachers that have emerged, and they are talented in their own way, there are Zambians that still long for their own Nevers Mumba.
What I see happening is that Dr. Mumba will live with controversy for the rest of his life because there are some folks that have never and may never forgive him for “abandoning” them.
It is a shame that people we looked up to at that time have become so shameless to the extent of selling their dignity to the demands of the stomach. in Bemba they say SEBANA WIKUTE, that is what Nevers has become. He shamelessly occasionally supports even useless things just for the sake of being in the headlines the following day so that he gets his tummy full again.
I think Kellys Kaunda has nothing better to do in life than wrote articles to discredit people.
Who has he time? Only someone who ha nothing productive to do in life and has failed at all else.
Nakachinda brought himself down, Maxwell Chongu brought himself down. Even Given Lubinda and all these washed up has been wannabes have used their own mouths to bring themselves down or end up in prison.
Kellys Kaunda do you want to join them with your loud mouth traids when you have your own issues in a closet and think people can not bring them out?
As Zambians we have allowed this culture of gossiping and talking to prevaide us. Would we not be a better set of humans and set our own trend by working more to be productive than gossiping like some nations that Zambian observer posts immoral stories day in day out and think they are of value?
Lets in 2026 aspire to be a better people. Better at working hard work and being productive….I beg