On Dr Canisius Banda

I remember reading an article by Dr Canisius Banda in The Post a few years ago. At that time, Dr Banda was a regular contributor to the post having a column that creatively dealt with a number of health issues using a story. I have no idea where Dr Banda got those stories, whether they were harvested from his rich imagination or anecdotes from his medical practice. Regardless of the source they had me clamoring for more.

 There was no doubt in my mind that Dr Banda was a skillful writer and I was convinced that if he ever saw the need to swap his stethoscope for something else, it will have to be the pen. I used to live in Chongwe when Dr Banda was the resident Doctor at Chongwe Health Centre. Tales of the empathetic doctor who preferred to speak to his patients in vernacular had developed to anecdotal levels in the township. I remember hearing him speak at a church gathering with such humility that one would have had difficulty believing that he was a medical doctor of some repute.

Dr Canisius’ best column in my opinion had to do with perception. In it he gave an example of electromagnetic waves. He wrote that these waves have been there from the beginning (its not my intention to enter into creation vs evolution debates). Electromagnetic waves were there during Jesus’ time, during the age of the Greek philosophers and so forth. However for them to be harnessed as a means for communication on which depend mobile phones, televisions, computers and other gadgets, perception of the waves had to change. The bottom line according to the article is that: just because you can’t see something does not mean it does not exist. Sometimes you need to change your perception for you to appreciate something.

In retrospect it would seem the Doc was vouchsafing a self fulfilling prophecy to all of us. It would not be long before our beloved doctor would discard the stethoscope, not for the pen, but for a political platform. Joining the Movement for Multi-party Democracy, suddenly he could be seen campaigning for a parliamentary position in Mandevu of all places. Unfortunately for him, the elections would offer a chastising lesson as he was trounced by the Patriotic Front’s (PF) Jean Kapata.

The next move Dr Banda pulled surprised all of us. He announced that he had resigned from the MMD and joined the United Party for National Development (UPND), where he was offered the vice presidency (Is it not strange that a party can simply appoint someone vice president without subjecting them process to intra-party democratic procedures such as elections?). Frankly  I struggle to see the logic of the Doc’s move. I can understand why UPND dangled the carrot in front of Dr Banda. They have for years been struggling with discarding their regional and tribal tag. Getting an Easterner like Dr Banda and giving him such a high position was most likely a strategic move meant to forge a more nationalist appeal. Whether it worked in as far as making the UPND have national appeal is an entirely different matter.

Politics beckons

Let me digress a bit. I like Dr Banda, I really do. I think he is very intelligent, a thinker and probably means well.

 I just cannot for the life of me understand why he would leave the MMD for the UPND. The MMD is a much bigger party and definitely has more national appeal than the UPND. Further the two parties have no succinct distinction in ideology; the kind that would make someone leave one for the other.  This has led to conspiracy theories one which holds that the Doc had hit upon hard times financially having abandoned his medical practice. The UPND therefore came up with an offer he couldn’t refuse. For his part, Dr Banda gave one of those well-reahearsed typically political statement of suddenly finding the light in UPND and that the MMD was going nowhere etc. 

Unfortunately there has not been any upturn of fortunes in the UPND worth writing home about. Apart from the victory in the Kafulafuta parliamentary by-election it has been business as usual for the UPND and one would be hard-pressed to conclude that they have made any political headway. The MMD remains Zambia's largest opposition political party regardless of what metrics one uses. I am very sure this apparent stagnation of the UPND has not been lost on Dr Banda.

This probably explains his latest move. It has been reported that Dr Banda has been to State House to meet with the Republican President, a development which has prompted his party president to demand an explanation. This coupled with the fact that Dr Banda has all of sudden become conspicuously absent from the UPND campaign trail has prompted many to think the Doc is ready to make us change perception once gain i.e join the ruling party. At the time of writing, the UPND had issued a statement clarifying that Dr Banda got clearance from his party's executive and that his meeting with president was over a medical report and not job-seeking. Those specialised in smelling rats, note the silence over the visit from Dr Banda itself that the surprise with which the UPND president reacted when he learnt about it. The Doc has since launched a scathing attack on the PF via his Facebook page, most likely in order to divert attention.   

Of course politicians enter politics in order to gain power. Power to rule, make decisions and enjoy the privileges that come with election to political office. This is usually against a backdrop of some ideology that explains how the politician intends to serve his people. 

There are broadly two approaches to gaining political power. Some go about this by patiently expounding their ideology, explaining their message to the citizens and allowing them to buy into the politician’s vision for the future. They choose to patiently stick to their ideology and party, believing in their message and hoping one day the masses will buy into the message and vote them into office. They diligently preach their message with the hope that one day the winds of change will blow in their favour.

Others cut corners jumping from one party to the next in the hope of landing political power. Unwilling to put in the hard work or having no regard to ideological standpoints, they hope the next party is going to propel them into power, and once that does not happen or takes long they quickly move on to another party. The Zambian political scene has a number of examples of such politicians like the ubiquitous Honorable Silvia Masebo who has been virtually part of every government since 1991, there is old man Daniel Munkombwe who famously coined the phrase “politics of benefits” and so on.

There are those who take a Machiavellian approach and affirm that the end justifies the means. And it would seem that in the short term, Daniel Munkombwe and all like minded are reaping the benefits. The only problem is that any politician worth his salt, knows that politics is not only a contract with the current generation but more importantly the future generations. Politicians need to be concerned about how posterity is going to judge them.

For his sake I hope Dr Canisius does not find himself classified into the category of spineless politicians. Those that don’t stand for anything and hence fall for anything.  That’s my hope, although to be honest, the signs do not appear encouraging.