Yes, buy ‘‘HH’s tractors’’: defending the ‘aba Tonga ba kaso’ mentality -Austin Mbozi

Yes, buy ‘‘HH’s tractors’’: defending the ‘aba Tonga ba kaso’ mentality – Pt 1

By Austin Mbozi

I defend President Hakainde Hichilema’s (HH) advice to Zambians to invest in productive equipment like tractors instead of spending on consumer goods like VX vehicles.

I add that Zambians must in fact adopt the ‘aba Tonga ba kaso’ mentality of saving money for productive investments. I differ with the irresponsible consumption oriented tastes of characters like MP Stephen Kampyongo of the PF ‘kaponya’ party and ex-UPND photographer Chella Tukuta who criticised the President. ‘Aba Tonga ba kaso’ is one of the derogatory catch-phrases that was historically used to de-campaign Tonga presidential aspirants like Harry Nkumbula, Anderson Mazoka and HH. It means that a Tonga president would be stingy, since the Tonga people (Ilas, Lenjes and proper Tongas) are stingy. Even now, many social media platform characters do say that President HH, a Tonga, is being stingy by not dishing out cash to his UPND cadres and by removing subsidies from fuel, mealie meal etc.

Yet, this ‘stinginess’ to save funds for investments is good. President HH did not assume that every Zambian should necessarily buy a tractor and be a farmer as concluded by Kampyongo. The tractor was only an example of a productive equipment. And if Chella despises farming in preference for photographing, the President meant that he should not rush into buying luxury cars with his capital, but invest it in more photographing equipment. I add that Chella should also develop ‘aba Tonga ba kaso’ mentality.

Here are examples of groups that benefitted from the ‘abaTonga ba kaso’ mentality. First, the Ila tribe of Zambia. No doubt. The RURAL Ila (when you do not include their fellow ‘Bantu Botatwe’ Tonga and the Lenje ) are Zambia’s wealthiest RURAL tribe on the per capita income basis. The around 160,000 residents of Namwala district where the majority of the Ilas live are surrounded by around 140,000 herds of cattle. If they shared them, including to babies and non-cattle keeping non-Ila residents, each will have, roughly, a cow. A 130 kg slaughtered beef fetches around K13,000. There is no other RURAL district in Zambia which has such wealth, from which each resident can get K13,000!

It is the ‘aba Tonga ba kaso’ mentality that economically empowered the Ilas. In 1982, Goodwin Bwalya Mwangilwa published a biography of an Ila freedom fighter Harry Nkumbula entitled ‘Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula: A Biography of the Old Lion of Zambia’. Harry Nkumbula’s father, Longwani (meaning ‘Long One because he was tall! ), despite having hundreds of cattle, living a simple village life of herding cattle away from home for months, walking barefoot, wearing rags (‘magamba’) and feeding on ‘bwaanda’, a sort of protein made out of sour milk. But in around 1900, the young and adventurous Longwani got fed up with this simple life and envied the luxuries of the white men who were arriving in his Maala village. So he and his elder brother, Shakaseba, walked all the way from Maala to Salisbury in modern Zimbabwe, just so that they should be the first Ila to board the train or ‘chitima (steamer). This ‘chitima’ connected them to go and see the lavishness of the whiteman’s lifestyles in South Africa!

Why did the Ila not just sell their cows to enjoy luxury? Stop joking. Selling cows which they even gave names to make them seem human so that you feel guilty killing them anyhow? These saved cows later saved the Ila. Harry’s father Longwani failed to survive in South Africa, even after working as a police officer at Mafeking. He returned to Maala poor, like ‘a Phiri ana bwela’ in the song by the legendry Nachil Pitchen Kazembe or the biblical prodigal son, with ‘empty suit cases’.

But the saved cows paid Harry’s school fees and gave him capital to start trading in cowry shells. He sold two big cows for 30 pounds. This was a lot of money those days when money was real money. Harry was able to travel all the way to Seychelles in East Africa, eat in hotels, buy cowry shells and returned to Maala to exchange them with more cows. (And imagine that Harry also entertained himself with women as he travelled, since as his biography later reveals, the ‘mudaala’ loved side chicks).

This is the wealth which Harry Nkumbula later used to form Nkuraru emerald mining company, which his son Baldwin Mwaakumabu Nkumbula inherited and used to help fund the MMD party. Compare the Ila with the short-lived consumer habits of the Copperbelt people (Copperbeltans) of the 1970s. In his book, ‘The Depth of my Foot Prints’ (2018, page 402) former finance minister Peter Ng’andu Magande said that in the 1960s the Copperbeltans lived in so much opulence that President Kaunda complained that they had a different wealthier ‘nation’ above the rest of Zambia. Indeed we envied them. As little boys we used to ‘steal’ our father’s 2 Band radio, went with it in the bush while looking after cattle and listening to soccer commentator Dennis Liwewe’s exaggerated commentaries about Kalusha Bwalya, Charles Musonda, Ackim Musenge or Johnson Bwalya. And to broadcasts of a boxing matches between Chisanda Mutti and Lottie Mwale, and of P K Chishala’s songs – all from Copperbelt!

So, what later impoverished these proud ‘ba Kopala’ to the extent of flocking to Lusaka where they were mocked as ‘ba Zimandola?’Answer. It is wastage consumption. They inherited performing mines from white colonists, and ‘ate’ up everything. Yet old habits die hard. When one Copperbeltan, President Chiluba accessed money in Lusaka, he ‘ate’ it all. In his book,’ A Venture in Africa’ (2007) late Zambian businessman Andrew Sardanis publishes a photo of Chiluba’s body-wear stockpiles in 21 trucks and 11 suitcases: 50 pairs of shoes, 150 suits and 300 shirts!

Look out for Part Two next Monday.

The author teaches business ethics at the University of Zambia. Phone +260-978-781920, email: austin.mbozi2017@gmail.com