The Lord said to Samuel, “Obey
the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected
you, but they have rejected me from being king over them" (1 Samuel 8:7).
This is what most Zambians went through during the just-ended
national elections when incumbent president, Rupiah Banda, was defeated by his arch-rival,
Michael Sata. Banda held a press conference where he conceded defeat and
congratulated the man who trumped him. The following day, he even attended the
inauguration of the new president and handed over the instruments of power in
full view of tens of thousand of the very people who voted him out. Having done
his final work, he even waved at the jeering and booing crowd. If you are
looking for greatness, there it is!
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| Rupiah Banda at the height of his election campaign |
Conceding defeat in any situation is difficult. It is even more
difficult in politics. Quite apart from the bashing that your ego undergoes at
the thought that your rival has publicly beaten you, it is also because
elections are a costly venture. You pour in a fortune into an election campaign
with the hope of winning. Loosing the election is like throwing all that money
into a furnace. That is very hard.
It is even more difficult when you are the reigning president
because all the instruments of power are still in your hands. By a word of
command you can declare the elections null-and-void (e.g. Laurent Gbagbo of
Ivory Coast) and call for a re-run. You can even call the Chief Justice to
swear you in at midnight and announce that you actually won (e.g. Kibaki in
Kenya).
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| Michael Chilufya Sata who finally dislodged Rupiah Banda from power |
We have seen this with many African state presidents. They would
rather share power than relinquish it. Hence, a number of our African countries
are presently being ruled in frustrating power-sharing structures (e.g. Kenya
and Zimbabwe). Others are ruling from God-knows-where, long after a popular
uprising has toppled them (e.g. Gaddafi).
Our political structures in Africa are not strong enough to force an
incumbent president to step down as a matter of course. Also, our culture of
giving presidents the aura of paramount chiefs only exacerbates matters. So,
whereas it will be taken for granted that Barack Obama or David Cameron will step
down if they lose an election, the same cannot be said of an African president.
The culture is different here.
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| Zambia's first president, Kenneth Kaunda, who lost elections in 1991 |
Add to this the fact that Rupiah Banda’s two predecessors
who stepped down after an election—Kaunda and Chiluba—were both prosecuted and
persecuted by their successors. Hence, when Rupiah loses an election and steps
down, we must accept that it is nothing short of the grace of God to us as a
nation. When he even goes so far as to attend the inauguration of his
successor, we had better make sure it is not a dream. Such things are rare in
Africa.
I am calling this “the grace of conceding defeat” because without
the grace of God an African president is not likely to do what Rupiah Banda did
last week. We first saw this grace here in Zambia when our first Republican
president, Kenneth Kaunda, stepped down twenty years ago. We are told that he
was playing golf in the State House grounds when the votes were being counted.
When he was informed by state agents that his main rival, Frederick Chiluba,
was too far ahead to be beaten by him, he conceded defeat and instructed the
state officials to begin the process of handing over power.
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| FTJ Chiluba who defeated Kaunda |
This grace or lack of it was there even in Bible days. Let me give
you an example of each. There was a time when Israel was ruled by a judge
called Samuel. During his reign, the people of Israel began to demand for a
king (instead of a judge) as was the case with other nations. Samuel took the
matter to God in prayer, as he really felt rejected and dejected. However, God
assured him that the people had rejected him (i.e. God) and not him (i.e.
Samuel). So, Samuel went ahead and inaugurated their first king, Saul.
That could not have been easy for Samuel, especially that he knew
from the very mouth of God that the person he was ushering into office was
going to make the people regret their decision. Saul was going to take Israel
into a mess. Yet Samuel stood before the people and gave them a very moving farewell
address before inaugurating their king.
The absence of the grace of conceding is seen in the life of Saul,
when it became clear to him that David was to be his successor. Instead of
conceding and handing over power to David, Saul held on to power until his
death. He hunted David like a wild animal to avoid the inevitable. The entire
state machinery in Israel was turned into a manhunt. The man was never happy
from that point onwards, and he made his own family life impossible.
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| Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast who failed to reliquished power after an election |
What is it that makes some people give up power so easily and so
sweetly while others hang on to it until they are either killed or overthrown?
It seems to me that God in his grace makes the former individuals realise that
life is bigger than them. God brings them onto the stage for a season and then
takes them off—but the play continues. They are not mwine wa filimu (the main actor of a film) who never dies. God
alone is the main Actor. The rest of us are dispensable.
God also gives such men the grace to realise that there is more to
life than the position of a state president. A person does not die when he moves
out of the unspeakable comforts of Plot One and when his face is removed from
the picture frames in all the business houses in the country. There is life
beyond being driven alone, with a motorcade the length of the Victoria Falls.
Life can go on and even be enjoyed without your name being mentioned in the
first ten items of the Main News in the public media. Life can actually be
enjoyed without being made to feel as if you are the most important person
around.
Let me end by saying that in writing this blog post, I am not
suggesting that Rupiah Banda never did wrong things as president of Zambia, nor
am I suggesting that he was the best president Zambia ever had. I am not even
suggesting that the election process itself was conducted on a level playing
field. What I am saying is that we need to acknowledge the grace he displayed as
an African president in not only conceding defeat but also attending and
participating in the inauguration of his successor. We need to thank the man
for doing us proud as Zambians and as Africans. But above all, we need to thank
God for giving Rupiah Banda the grace of humility and magnanimity to accept that
his time to leave the stage had come. After all, Zambia is bigger than him.
