Mwanawasa’s mother, Myria Mokola’s death [in 2004] was a painful episode in his life. He recalled the tragic event:
What happened was that there was an official emergency and I had flown to Ndola to attend to it. Meanwhile, my motorcade was in Ndola to receive me, and one of the cars had passed through my mother’s farm to deliver things that I had bought for her. Now, after the driver had left, some 30 minutes later, there came a man to inform my mother of the death of a relation. My niece’s husband had died…
So my mother said she had to go and attend the funeral. Now, you see, if she had received this message before the driver passed through the farm, she could have asked him for a lift to the roadside. But it happened after he had gone and you know how women are. She started wailing and thereupon decided to go by any means. In the meantime, the nearest vehicle was a farm tractor and she just ordered the driver to connect the trailer and take her to the roadside.
That’s how she was taken to the roadside where she waited for transport. Now, there came this minibus and she boarded it with her grandson’s wife. When they reached Ndola, just after the Golf Club, the minibus caught fire. There was petrol in the vehicle, in a container. It seems there was something wrong with the tank. I think it was blocked and they were feeding the minibus from a container.
And so the fire just went off and the conductor asked all the passengers to get out. My mother came out, but then, where the minibus had stopped, there was a ditch, and my mother fell into it as she came out. Meanwhile, the conductor had to throw out the petrol container trying to avoid the vehicle from catching fire. But this container just fell on my mother. That is how the fire followed her, and the rest is history. She is buried at Teka Farm alongside her son, Harry.
****
Clearly, the death of his mother, in such a tragic and terrible accident, was a source of immense pain for Mwanawasa. He was particularly concerned about the perception that he had neglected his dearly beloved mother.
He continued:
When my mother was involved in the road traffic accident, it was said that I neglected her – she was not chauffer driven; she was…on a bus. Yes, she was using public transport because when I sent a van to the farm so that she could be driven in it, my nephew was involved in an accident with it, and it almost killed him.
So I did not send another vehicle after this. Whenever she wanted transport, I arranged that she should [contact] me or my young sister in Ndola, and then we could send transport for her. I have had a telephone installed at my farm so phoning was not a problem.
It was also said that President Mwanawasa…kept his mother at the so-called farm; that, as a matter of fact, he is even ashamed to go there because he fears to be laughed at because of the way he is looking after his mother.
Unfortunately, the public only came to know how I have been looking after my mother during her funeral. They saw what a big electrified house I have there. They saw that it was a reasonably well off farm. All that you see there is a result of hard work.
Mwanawasa had fond memories of his mother:
She was a torch-bearer for me, especially after my father died in 1975. I looked up to her to provide leadership to the family. Yes, as the eldest son, I have been able to provide the required leadership, but when it came to parental care or difficulties that we could not solve, I could go to her and she would provide me with advice. My mother was there to counsel all of us so that we could live together.
Mwanawasa recalled how resourceful his mother had been, even in her old age:
I have two farms in Ndola rural. When my mother died, she was 77 years old but she looked extremely young. So she was looking after these two farms. Even when I was a lawyer, she was doing that because I could only go to the farm over the weekend. And my mother had her own field. At the time of her death, she left maize in the field and we later harvested 700 bags, which for a 77-year-old is not a small achievement.
An agricultural extension officer who went to see how we were doing at the farm reported that my mother’s maize looked better than mine. My mother was extremely hard-working. She taught her children what hard-working means. I assisted her, but she also assisted herself. She assisted me to assist her.
An excerpt from the book: LEVY PATRICK MWANAWASA, An Incentive For Posterity; Pages 13-15. By Amos Malupenga (2009).
Picture caption: Levy’s mother: Mama Mokola, (seated) with her grand children, and on her laps is a great grand child, at Nkwazi House in State House in 2003. Picture courtesy of Mwanawasa’s family album.