Africa-Press – Zambia. Two weeks after Levy Mwanawasa was appointed Republican Vice-President by then President Frederick Chiluba, he was involved in a “nasty” road traffic accident in which his ADC died on the spot on December 8, 1991. An assassination attempt on him was suspected. But this suscipicion was later allayed or rather ruled out by the Commission of Inquiry. Mwanawasa did not agree with this finding of the Commission.
Details here below in the excerpt from: LEVY PATRICK MWANAWASA, An Incentive For Posterity, Pages 51-54.
“On one Sunday morning, December 8, 1991, at about 06:25, a fatal road traffic accident occurred along the airport road, near the entrance to the National Council for Scientific Research in Lusaka. A motorcade conveying Vice-President Levy Mwanawasa was travelling towards the airport when his car, a registration number GRZ 901 BF, driven by Samuel Hampongo, collided with a Toyota Land Cruiser registration number GRZ 474 BG, driven by Sergeant Godwin Chirwa, a driver assigned to the then First Lady Vera Chiluba.
Mwanawasa, who was going to the airport to see off the Maputo- bound President Frederick Chiluba, was seriously injured and immediately evacuated to South Africa for specialist treatment, while his aide-de-camp [ADC], Superintendent Brown Mwale, died on the spot. Mwanawasa sustained an open fracture of the left humerus and four broken ribs on his left side.
Following the accident, President Chiluba appointed a Commission of Inquiry on December 26, 1991, to investigate and report on the events and circumstances relating to the accident. The Commission was chaired by the then Investigator-General and now Electoral Commission of Zambia [ECZ] Chairperson, Justice Florence Mumba. Other members included: parliamentarians Simon Zukas and Abraham Mokola; retired Inspector-General of Police, the late Henry Mtonga; private legal practitioner Bonaventure Mutale; and then Chief Parliamentary Draftsman, Eva Jhala.
Among the Commission’s findings, contained in a report dated April 27, 1992, the Commission established that the fatal accident was caused by the drunken state of Sergeant Godwin Chirwa who was driving the Toyota Land Cruiser and that the accident was not as a result of Samuel Hampongo’s conduct or the mechanical condition of the vehicles. The Commission further found that the accident was not a suicide attempt by Sergeant Chirwa. The Commission ruled out speculations about a possible assassination attempt.
Mwanawasa recollected and interpreted the accident, and the events surrounding it in this way:
Talking about the accident: what happened was that the day before the accident, I went to Ndola by air and so my cars—the sweepers and the official car—met me at the airport in Ndola. And I received medical equipment for Arthur Davison Hospital. After that, in the evening, I came back by air, leaving these cars behind, including the sweepers. I reached Lusaka in the evening. There was only one sweeper car which remained in Lusaka, plus the vehicle in which I was.
When I arrived at the Lusaka International Airport, the sweeper car was placed in front. That was how I was driven home. That time I was keeping up in Mulungushi village. My family was still in Ndola. And very early the following morning, President Chiluba was leaving for Maputo, so I had to see him off. And we started off for the airport because I had to arrive earlier than President Chiluba. But instead of putting this sweeper car in front, as had happened the previous night, it was put behind my car. And as we were going on a straight airport road, there was this vehicle which was coming from the airport.
I don’t know if this was a coincidence or not, the vehicle was from State House. It was being driven by an official from State House. He left his side of the road and came to our side of the road. I don’t know what my driver had in mind, but I understand that he was trying to avoid this vehicle. He went to the right. The driver of the other vehicle came to hit where my ADC was sitting and he was killed instantly.
Had my driver driven fast, it’s me who was going to die. The proper thing was for him to drive into the bush on the left but he chose to go to the right. Of course, this is based on what I was told afterwards because I had become unconscious and I don’t know what happened thereafter. Based on what I came to learn afterwards, yes, there was suspicion of foul play. This suspicion was further heightened by the…following facts.
The first one was that this driver who came to run into my car was charged with causing death by dangerous driving and he was appearing in court and later he was put on his defence. When it was his turn to testify, four days before that, he died under mysterious circumstances in Eastern Province where he had gone. His death was not given prominence in the press.
Then the wife and a relative to this man contacted the permanent secretary in Eastern Province. They said they wanted to meet me and asked the permanent secretary to facilitate. I was approached and I asked for the subject matter. He said, ‘It is about your accident.’ I said, ‘Okay, let them come.’
But on the day these people were supposed to come, they never came. Instead they went to this permanent secretary and said, ‘Tell Mr Mwanawasa that we could not come because the system had positioned some man or men at the gate of Government House, my residence, so we feared. But tell him that on the eve of that accident, my husband came home very drunk and he had a lot of money. He said, ‘Here is the money’, and he gave me a lot of money. He said, ‘Tomorrow I might probably not come back.’ And indeed the following day, that accident happened, so we wanted to inform Mr Mwanawasa that maybe that accident was not an ordinary one.
I can’t say whether that is true or not because I had no opportunity to talk to these people. The information I received was second hand. Of course, some names, like Brigadier General Godfrey Miyanda, were implicated in this accident and the Commission was set up to probe and establish the truth behind it. His name was cleared. And I have told General Miyanda that, as far as I am concerned, he is innocent. If indeed there was an assassination attempt, it was not General Miyanda. It must have been someone else, although I have no idea up to now.
The accident was very bad. I was unconscious when I was being taken to the hospital. I was unconscious in the intensive care unit in South Africa for two weeks. That is why some people claim that, as a result of that accident, I am insane, that I have mental lapses. It is true that when I recovered consciousness, I was unable to recollect what happened even though my mental capacity had recollected.”
Picture caption: The remains of Mwanawasa’s official Mercedez Benz at the scene of the accident on December 8, 1991. Picture by The Post.
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