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Kalimanshi's Waterloo: Lessons from Bobo and Kadobi
Every era has its own. In 2001 MMD had Norman Sakala aka Bobo, and Scorpion Kadobi, two very crude thugs based at Kulima Tower. They fearlessly commanded an empire of lawlessness that left everyone bewildered. #Thread
Every era has its own. In 2001 MMD had Norman Sakala aka Bobo, and Scorpion Kadobi, two very crude thugs based at Kulima Tower. They fearlessly commanded an empire of lawlessness that left everyone bewildered. #Thread
Their main task was to harass and 'sort out' anyone opposed to Chiluba's third term bid. A group of 22 senior ministers and party officials who opposed Chiluba's ambition lived in fear as Bobo, Kadobi and their militia called the shots.
The 2001 MMD provincial conferences drew extra interest as each was required to declare if they were pro or anti-third term. As self-appointed bodyguards of Michael Sata, Bobo and Kadobi attended all provincial conferences and their presence was meant to instil fear in delegates.
They had the guts to beat Cabinet Ministers and senior party officials and no one in the party, literally no one, reprimanded them or called for their arrest - except their victims. Police watched, the same way they watch today.
Bobo and Kadobi were joined in this violence by one Joshua Mutisa, a District Administrator for Kalulushi and later Kitwe who beat and assaulted then Minister of Agriculture Suresh Desai at the party conference in Monze.
With unfettered access to collections from buses at Kulima Tower and with money from the party secretariat, Bobo and Kadobi were a well-oiled two-man led machine that upended the law to aid their criminality. The untouchables of the party and the country.
I met them at Sata's office on Cairo Road a day before the MMD's controversial convention in Kabwe. Their self-ascribed importance to the elaborate scheme of violence was noticeable. Hovering outside Sata's office, they cleared the corridor and decided who saw 'bamudala'.
It goes without saying that commanding access to the country's Number Three official came with its handsome perks, which fed and sustained a chain of hero worshippers and sycophants. This was late April 2001.
Fast forward to September 2001, Sata quit the party. As he sought to dismantle MMD, guess who threatened to beat him? Yes, it was Bobo and Kadobi. The monsters he nourished had come back to bite him.
After Mwanawasa won the election, he told MMD cadres: if you commit crime, you are on your own. Don't use the party for your criminal activities. He directed Police to arrest all lawbreakers regardless of party affiliation.
Bobo and Kadobi smelt the coffee. They went underground and generally all cadres behaved. That is why today, Mwanawasa's singular statement on political violence is used as the gold standard.
Cadres that have been committing crime know they can get away with it. The scenes at the PF secretariat today where Ba Inno, who could well be from the Bobo & Kadobi School of Political Violence, was lynched, happen when a political party breeds thugs in the name of cadres.
This militarisation of politics has consequences. While violent cadres may today do your bidding, tomorrow they may turn on you or they may themselves become victims of those who feel oppressed as we saw from those who beat Ba Inno.
But does anyone learn from all this history which generously keeps repeating itself?
