ZAMBIA’S DIAMOND JUBILEE- NSINGO AND YAKUFU STILL ‘FORGOTTEN’.
By Gumbi Kaziguda Jele
This past Thursday, Zambia celebrated the 60th anniversary of its independence from Britain in grand style. The nation celebrated its 6 decades of ‘freedom’ under a very striking theme; “60 Years Strong: Honoring Our Heritage, Embracing Our Future”.
It cannot be denied that Zambia’s independence is a significant chapter in Africa’s history. It involved a complex interplay of local nationalist movements- definitely inspired by some notable traditional figures who shed their blood fighting for their own lands. Ultimately with an awakened and collective mind, this gradually dismantled colonial structures to achieve independence.
But the world is yet to appreciate and know who REALLY laid the very foundation of this freedom that we are today enjoying. The first-rate cluster of our ‘jayhawkers’ remain hidden in their graves and they have one question for us as a country, “why have you forgotten us?”
60 years on and the World is yet to hear or know who really was Zambia’s guiding light of the emancipation movement. There has never been any brilliant book that details the heroism, self-sacrifice and grim determination of Prince Nsingo, son of Inyandezulu Mphezeni KaZwangendaba, the amaNgoni King. Worse still, the country is yet to honor and recognize the Ngoni royal Prince as its foremost freedom fighter.
This is worrying and needs urgent action given the brutality of Prince Nsingo’s public execution in early February, 1898. In fact unknown to many, in late January, a then 23 year old Prince Yakufu, another son of King Mphezeni was also gunned down by the British at his Chimphinga residence. Prince Yakufu had refused to leave his own village despite being told that a force under Captain Blarke was marching there. After his assassination, the group burnt down Chimphinga.
A week later, the very people who killed Prince Yakufu captured his older brother, Prince Nsingo who was fingered as the leader of the Ngoni forces that were fighting against British occupation of their lands. They tried him in a kangaroo court and had him executed by a firing squad on 5th February 1898. Among his 14 wives, two (Mkuchwa and Zikhalo) were also hunted down in the Vubwi valley and shot dead.
Attached photo: King Xilowa KaNsingo (Mphezeni II) when he was aged only 10 in 1901. He was the oldest son of Prince Nsingo and his wife Ndlunkulu Mkuchwa Mbazima. His parents were both killed when he was aged 7.
Photo Credit: Richard Francis