EDITH NAWAKWI, ‘MY BAPONGOSHI’
The death of opposition leader Edith Zewelani Nawakwi is as heart wrenching as it has grieved the entire country. Naturally, I join the myriads of people pouring their empathy and sympathy on the family that has lost.
I am compelled to write a few words in remembering this Iron Lady because I would like to share with you her life-story from her own mouth as told to me in May 2005, almost exactly twenty years ago.
This morning, I read in the Daily Revelation newspaper that in her ill-health Nawakwi struggled to record her life-story because she wanted the current generation as well as posterity to hear her life-story from her own voice and not the common speculations and conjecture which are abundantly available on the streets.
I recall almost three years ago when I launched my Conversations With Memorable Personalities book, Nawakwi – one of the personalities in this book – asked me to help her expand on the material covered in the book for a more extensive and detailed updated account of her life and living. Unfortunately, we never got to conclude on this subject matter.
So, for those of you who never got the opportunity to buy or read the Conversations book after its launch in May, 2022, I am here to share Nawakwi’s life-story as told by herself. I will share the 15 pages carrying her story out of the 652 pages covering 45 personalities.
But before I do that, let me briefly explain why I am referring to Nawakwi as my BAPONGOSHI or in-law. As a journalist, I knew Nawakwi distantly in the mid 1990s but became very close to her in the year 2000 at the height of the third term debate. From then on, we became such buddies, together with her late husband Geoffrey Hambulo, who she fondly called Jeff.
Nambozi, her last born daughter, is almost agemate with my first born son Musonda. On a few occasions, I had visited Nawakwi’s residence and office, respectively, in the company of my son who was under five in the early 2000s. She was so fond of him and declared that “when the time is ripe”, my son would marry Nambozi. That’s how we started addressing each other as BAPONGOSHI.
So Nawakwi to me became one of my greatest sources of news, an elder sister, a mother figure, and more interestingly, my BAPONGOSHI.
Any good journalist would agree with me that any interview with Nawakwi was a potential lead story. Metaphorically, I would say Nawakwi had such sexy quotes and knew how to pick her words from her very wide, deep and rich vocabulary, in order to effectively convey her messages, particularly to the intended target(s) or audience. She possessed such a rare ability to grab attention and pique interest through intrigue and creativity. No wonder she several times had issues with the law or those who enforced it. Nawakwi knew when to be caustic or corrossive and when to be kind and sweet.
She was not only educated. She was also knowledgeable on a wide variety of life’s intriguing situations and always found a creative way of turning her knowledge into wisdom.
I can go on and on. Let me just now share her life-story that she shared with me in May 2005 when we first published it in The Post newspaper.
May you ponder over Nawakwi’s story as you enjoy it.
Amos Malupenga
Author
