INTERCOURSE WITH THE JOURNO

JOURNALISM IS NOT FOR THE FOR THE CHICKEN-HEARTED

When fate yawns on your face, even a rotten banana can break your teeth. My early days after training as a reporter were never rubicund and for starters, those who want to join the media industry thinking it is all fun time at the Apollo must think again.

The media industry is for the thick-skinned, the brave and the ugly. It is not for chicken-hearted novices who easily break into pieces under pressure because pressure itself is very much part of the profession.

Those who think being a reporter is about slaying in front of cameras casting the news or presenting programmes must think again because even a grandmother in the village can cast news or present programmes without having to step a foot in the corridors of any journalism school provided she has the requisite attributes required. 

Evelyn Hone College of Applied Arts and Commerce spit me out of its campus in 2008, raw. I was raw in the sense that I only had a few months of newsroom experience. You see, I was part of the notorious bunch in 2007 that locked up former Minister of Science, Technology, and Vocational Training, one Peter Marvin William Daka, after almost a week of power outages and dry taps at the college.

By the time Daka showed his ugly face at the college to try and bring a truce between unruly students and college management, things had gotten out of hand to a point where students could no longer prepare meals within the hostels as there was no power and water.

Toilets were teaming with human excreta as they could not be flushed. Students started going all the way to the Intercity Bus Terminus just to answer the call of nature and management seemed to have no plan on how to rectify the mess it had created. 

Things worsened when word went around that actually, the water and power crisis had been caused by management’s failure to offset the exorbitant bill owed to the two utilities. Already, pockets of skirmishes with “our neighbours” the police officers from Lusaka Central Police Station had been recorded with a few of our fellow “freedom fighters” having been picked by the police.

Church Road was sporadically closed for the next two days and this enraged the then dreaded Lusaka Province Commanding Officer, late Wazakaza Ng’uni, the man who led from the front by always finding himself at the battlefront instead of barking commands to his junior from the comfort of his office. 

To the millennials who have no clue who Mr. Ng’uni was, the brave late cop was the no nonsense man about town in Lusaka, the senior cop cut from another cloth who was feared by everyone, including the notorious students in Lusaka.

He was the man who appeared at every scene and took control of every situation no matter how tense it was. Mr. Ng’uni died on Tuesday, July 3, 2007 in Lusaka’s Kabangwe area on the Great North Road when his Toyota Mark II overturned, killing him instantly and an inquest was conducted on his death as there was suspicion of foul play but it was established that there was no foul play involved in his death. Story for another day.

A day before the showdown with Mr. Daka, Mr. Ng’uni entered our campus and sought audience with the students over the smashing of vehicles on Church Road by the rioting monks and their mommas in a bid to address the sporadic closure of the entire stretch to motorists but Evelyn Hone College Students Union (EHCOSU) Secretary General Given Kwapu matter-of-factly told Mr. Ng’uni that there would be no such engagement  until the students who were in police cells were released unconditionally because there was nothing wrong they had done.

For the first time, Mr. Ng’uni buckled under our pressure and agreed to unconditionally release the students immediately and among the resolutions made, was that police must not interfere in the internal difference between college management and students.

The police in turn demanded that no student must go outside the campus to attack innocent motorists and after about 30 minutes of deliberations, Waza and his officers left but for us, that meeting achieved nothing apart from the fact that our fellow “freedom fighters” had been released unconditionally.

It was after this meeting with the police that Mr. Daka came to the college the following day without reading the mood of students whose tempers were flaring by then while others had fled college after fighting running battles for three days. Mr. Daka underestimated the power and influence of the students. He thought by coming to intimidate us, we would give in and stay in the dark till kingdom comes or starve to death.

By the time he had come to our campus, we already knew some of the sentiments he had put in the media about our situation and we were clear that he was not going to solve anything. So, the moment he arrived, he was ushered into one of the offices where he was locked up from around 09:00 to 18:00 when we finally released him.

This incensed then President Levy Mwanawasa who ordered that the school be closed indefinitely after hearing that one of his “generals” had been reduced to a sawdust circus at the hands of the unforgiving students.

We went to sleep very late on November 13, 2007 because of the riot and meetings during the day and only woke up the following day, November 14, 2007 to a loud gong by dreadful-looking police officers from the Kamfinsa Mobile Unit clad in full riot gear who had marched into and surrounded our campus like the case was with the Biblical Jericho, as early as 04:00 while riding on horses, to announce that our college had been closed indefinitely.

We were given only five minutes to pack whatever we could lay our hands on, pack, go to the Monk Square, and wait for buses hired by the Government that would take us to our various destinations, never to return to campus until the following year save for the final year students who were allowed to go back on December 2, 2007 to write the examinations while the rest of us remained home, licking our “freedom fighting” wounds.

According to the calendar, we were supposed to go for industrial attachment in the first term of the third year but because we did not write our second year examinations and had no recommendation letters from the institution since we closed abruptly, we just had to use our initiative to be attached to any media house and because there was no one to monitors us, this is why I said I was offloaded into the industry raw.

We returned to school the following year and wrote our second year examinations. Straightaway, we started our academic calendar for the third year and wrote our final examinations at the end of the year, after which I went back to my native Kalomo Town.

I was among the privileged few who found a job two months after completing my studies. Around March 2009, I received a call from Paul Shalala who was the News Editor at some newspaper in Lusaka saying I needed to travel to Lusaka in two days’ time because there were openings at the newspaper he was working for and that he had already put my name among those to be interviewed.

It was a small newspaper and I reluctantly accepted to attend the interviews. You see, Paul and I had been buddies for three years. He was not only my senior in college as he was a year ahead of me, but was also a church mate.

We all belonged to the Youth Department of the Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Church and we were both studying for Master Guide exams. We wrote the same Church Heritage exam and we were the only two who passed out of 15 of us who sat for that examination under the Lusaka Central Conference.

He got invested in 2007 as Mater Guide while I failed the public assessment and was referred to the next investiture ceremony which was to be held the following year. I was happy for him but I was bitter with myself for failing but the truth was that I had not adequately prepared for it. A year later, I was also invested and the two of us traversed the Lusaka Central Conference through camps, meetings, and other church programmes.

This is how strong our bond was. When he suggested to me that he needed me to join him at that institution, it was pretty much not the job or salary that convinced me, but our friendship of years. I knew from those careful days and humble beginnings in the media, I would spring up to become one of the finest.

I attended the interviews and the same day, I was told that I had been selected to undergo the second and final phase of the recruitment process which was two weeks of field work where my fate would be determined by how many stories I would have written. I was pitted against Lexinah Mulenga, my former classmate. It was a tough period. Lexinah was also a very good reporter who specialised in sports and entertainment and clearly, she was better than me.

By the close of the first week, Lexinah had done over 10 stories while I only had about three. I was under pressure to impress. Paul told me there was nothing else he would do for me to get the job. He had already dangled the carrots on my face by putting me on the list of interviewees and now was the time for me to prove my worth.

I was standing between the deep blue sea and the daring devil. Going back to Kalomo after two weeks of working was out of the question. How was I going to face my elder brother and tell him I had failed? In terms of sources, Lexinah was again better than me and that was why her stories were flowing and commanding space in the newspaper but for me, it was a nightmare.

Like a diesel machine, I picked momentum in the second week. I wrote a number of stories most of which were printed while Lexinah seemed to have had a dip in output and by Friday the same week, we were at par on the number of stories published though with carryovers, I had beaten her but that was not part of the rules. Our fate was to be determined by the number of stories published and there was a tie.

A meeting was called later that day at which we were told about the tie and the options available. It was either one of us leaves the job for the other or we work at half the salary. The total salary was K1, 400 and so, if we agreed to share, that meant working for K700. Paul told us he had enjoyed working with both of us and wanted us to remain at the institution and grow with it. Long story short, we agreed to share the salary and that marked my entrance into the media industry.

A K700 for someone staying in Lusaka was nothing. I weighed all options and it seemed I had no way out. For the first time in my life, I regretted pursuing journalism. My elder brother had warned me against pursuing journalism saying there were no good paying jobs in the media but I had insisted. It was my dream. I wanted to be the next Matimba Nkonje. Sports was part of me but what I did not understand were the hurdles and rivers I had to cross before reaching that level. In my mind, it was all smooth sailing and that as long as I completed my course, I would be rubbing shoulders with the elite in the fraternity. How wrong I was!

The reality now dawned on me that it was going to be a perilous journey before I reach acceptable standards. To add salt to injury, the salary was only consistent for the first three months after which we started skipping a month or two, before being paid became a miracle, not because there was no money, but because the owner of the company had his own priorities.

It reached a point where sometimes I would walk from Kanyama to Long Acres for work and back to Kanyama. On top of that, there were days when we would starve because we were not given food. Most of the time, Paul used his own money to buy us food. We would buy buns and a “pamela” of sugar, make zigolo and eat. That was our lunch.

On days that I did not have money for transport, I would start off from Long Acres early to ensure that I get home before Chibolya junkies regrouped for night tomfooleries to save my persecuted, miserable self from running into deeper waters. This continued for months until we were four months behind in salaries and when it became unbearable, I summoned my hyena courage and confronted management.

By this time, Paul had already left. I must admit that Paul was the only person who could contain me when annoyed. I knew no boundary and spoke my mind and I think this attribute is still in me, only that with age, this is increasingly getting suppressed. What I do not believe in is keeping quiet when things are wrong, all in the name of maintaining peace.

So, on the material day, I asked my boss what he was thinking about the monies we were owed since there was no indication of commitment to dismantle the arrears to which he reacted angrily saying he had known all along that I had been flirting with the idea of brewing confusion in the company by inciting other employees to revolt.

He said a lot of demeaning things about me but what pissed me off the most was when he said there were a thousand more reporters out there who were dying for the job I was playing around with and that he would replace me any day he felt like because I was projecting myself as being bigger than the institution.

He got into the institutional memory to school me about how some people had sacrificed for the company to be where it was and that I should be grateful to him instead of being antagonistic over what he termed as “petty issues.”

I felt so bad that the man whose company I had sacrificed for had such evil intentions against me. I could not stomach the fact that after giving my all to the company despite going for months without pay, all he could pay me with was disdain. I was at pains to imagine that I survived lynching by political party cadres all because of this same company yet the very owner saw no value in what I was doing. 

For example, on July 29, 2009, two of my seniors at this media house and I were earmarked for a resounding beating by the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) thugs at the Kenneth Kaunda International Airport.

The cadres had branded us the hoodlums who were writing fake stories against the Government, together with some honchos at the now defunct Post Newspaper. On this day, clear instructions were passed from the top leadership of the MMD to the cadres that any reporter from our media house and The Post must be taught a lesson.

Those were days when I would walk into Michael Sata’s office any time, have an interview, and then he would tease me about how poverty stricken my company was, that it could not even afford transport for our assignments. He would then give me transport money to go back to the office.

On the material day, we were supposed to be at the airport by utmost 12:30 hours to cover the arrival of then President Rupiah Banda from Uganda where he had gone for a state visit. Our driver was delayed a bit because we were using the same vehicle with the guys from the marketing department. The moment he came in, we did not even allow him to get into the company premises but we jumped into the car by the roadside and told him to rush us to the airport.

We had hardly left Manda Hill when our boss called my colleague and asked him where we were before ordering us back to the office. Once in the office, he told us he had intelligence information that MMD cadres had been instructed to attack us and reporters from The Post.

Chibaula Silwamba from The Post was beaten right at the airport in full view of the police officers who did nothing to save him from the MMD thugs until he was forced out of the premises but before that, three reporters from The Post had earlier been beaten by the same group of thugs reportedly commandeered by one William Tekere Banda as the trio had gone to the airport to cover the departure of Zesco United for Sudan.

The three– news reporter Maluba Jere, photographer Collins Phiri and sports reporter Prudence Phiri, were manhandled and bundled out of the airport but the MMD onslaught on reporters that day did not end there. Times of Zambia reporter Anthony Mulowa and photographer Richard Mulonga were also clobbered for refusing to show them their IDs.

So, when we heard that Mr. Silwamba had been beaten that day, we were not surprised because we knew there was going to be a kerfuffle at the airport. We only survived because our boss had information from the MMD inner-circle.

At least President Banda had the decency to apologize for the behaviour of his thugs who had, on that day, gone on rampage attacking reporters with impunity while the police watched. Whether that was genuine or not, the bottom line is, he apologized.  This was just one of the many fates I had to endure working for this man but he was not seeing all this.

The demons in me overwhelmed me and I felt like jumping on him and pin him down to the ground but there was another part of me that never believed in being violent as a way of solving differences. I restrained myself and instead just left.

By the following day, I had made up my mind that I was going to resign. While the news editor was barking for the diary in the morning, I was typing my resignation letter and never wanted to talk to anyone. I was fuming inside like magma in a volcanic eruption.

By the time the owner of the company came in, I was done writing and editing my resignation and the moment he went into his office, I followed him and dropped the letter on his table without saying a word and then went back to the newsroom. It was a concise letter. My resignation was with immediate effect. He wanted to intimidate me so that I could continue working and stop complaining about the salary but I was not having any of it.

I resigned knowing fully well that I had nowhere else to go. I had no connections in the media and no job offer anywhere but still, I refused to be taken for a ride. I had enough and the only way out was for me to leave but leave, to where?

While I was still dilly dallying to clear my desk and deleting a few personal articles on the computer, my boss called me outside and spoke to me in a sober tone this time. He told me how hard working I was and how I easily gelled with the old reporters. He told me to come back if I do not find another job immediately as my position would still be waiting for me.

I did not want to listen to any of his sermons. Clearly, he was just preaching to the converted or was it ploughing the sand or taking coals to New Castle? All I wanted to know was when I would get the money the company owed me. I had clearly indicated in the letter that I was leaving Lusaka for Kalomo the same week.  So, when I asked him about the issue, he asked me to give him a few days.

Forget it. I only collected my money three weeks later, not as a lump sum, but in three instalments and that came with back-and-forth movements and a bit of exchange of words as he was determined not to give me my money. At least according to the record I found in the company where getting one’s dues after leaving the company was almost mission impossible. However, the never-say-die Tonga spirit in me tormented him until he was left with no option but to give me my money.

In Sinazongwe where my umbilical cord is buried and Kalomo where I grew up playing with the reeds by the Sichikwenkwe riverside, no one monkeys around with us and goes scot-free. I mean, I had nothing to lose. Even if he had opened doors for me, my unceremonious return to that company was a far-fetched idea.

There was no way I was going back to Egypt even if there was the Red Sea ahead of me and mountains on the sides. I was pressing on and not looking behind. I had made up my mind. I was done and no amount of enticement would lure me back.