(NYASATIMES) Jumani’s DNA matches Kamuzu’s, SA’s backstreet tests reveal

Jumani’s DNA matches Kamuzu’s, SA’s backstreet tests reveal
By Nyasa Times
Published: September 6, 2010

The long-awaited preliminary DNA paternity tests have revealed that Jim Jumani Johansson is the biological son of the late tin pot tyrant Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda. If the revelation is anything to go by, then the dreaded Pandora’s Box has been opened.

The overnight celebrity Johansson is entangled in a cobweb of a legal tussle to change his surname to Kamuzu Banda, the Malawi’s founding president. The backstreet preliminary DNA paternity tests indicate Jumani is the son of Kamuzu, as he was fondly called, Nyasa Times understands.

According to a source close to Jumani, the 37-year-old Kamuzu lookalike, who is also demanding a DNA test for his paternity to Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda had his DNA and Kamuzu’s DNA matched in South Africa private test which was facilitated by a local unnamed medical expert.

“Jumani’s DNA with Kamuzu matched. Kamuzu’s DNA was secretly taken from the College of Medicine for the purpose of preliminary tests. Jumani has a strong case,” said the source, whose identity shall remain anonymous in line with the known strict adherence to the Nyasa Times editorial policy of respecting our sources.

Members of the Kamuzu family obtained the injunction against Johansson after he reportedly visited Lilongwe offices of the Blantyre Newspapers Limited, one of business empires of the late Malawi’s tyrant ruler who ruled Malawi with an iron fist for 31 years.

Apparently, the High Court has ordered that Jumani can visit the business empire of the founder president for business purposes only not as Kamuzu’s son.

Jumani, as he is popuraly known, was also granted freedom by the same court earlier to use Kamuzu’s name.

According to the ruling by Mzuzu High Court Judge Lovemore Chikopa merely using the name Kamuzu Banda would not cause any damage to the ‘genuine’ Ngwazi dubbed Father and Founder of the Malawi nation.

“People should be free to call themselves whatever they want unless by so doing, they are causing damage to the person. No such damage has been shown to have been caused in this matter,” reads Justice Lovemore Chikopa’s ruling on miscellaneous Civil Cause No 15.

“An order restraining him calling himself Dr Banda’s son would save no useful purpose as many other persons and/or institutions are referring to him in that regard,” Justice Chikopa ruled.
Kamuzu’s most feared intelligence chief (at the notorious Police Special Branch) Martin Focus Gwede revealed that Jumani was a true son of the former dictator thereby adding salt to Jumani’s claims.

Gwede claimed he first saw Jumani and two other Kamuzu sons in the United Kingdom in 1975 when he accompanied Kamuzu and Mama Cecilia Kadzamira. The entourage, according to Gwede included John Tembo, Kamuzu’s right hand man.

“One day Dr. Banda invited me to follow him somewhere and he said Tembo should not come…We went to his house in London and while we were there l saw three boys, and one of them is this one,” Gwede told in the Weekend Nation recently.

He alleged in an interview with the paper that the late Dr. Banda confided in him that the three children including Jumani were his and that he was visiting them to give them money for their upkeep.

The frail and heavily-bearded ex-top police spy singled out John Tembo who was seen as Kamuzu’s closest ally as as the person not even to be told (in confidence) about the fatherhood of Kamuzu, according to the weekend paper.

Published sources give the following account of Kamuzu and his children.

During Kamuzu’s rule, it is believed that he accumulated at least US$320 million in personal assets, believed to be invested in everything from agriculture to mining interests in South Africa.
The most controversial part of this is the suspicion that his two grandchildren, who currently reside in the US and South Africa, are the heirs to the Banda fortune.

One of the grandchildren graduated from law school and left for the US, while the other remains in South Africa.

They may now learn about the existence of these anonymous grandchildren, but most importantly; ‘who and where are Banda’s children?’, most Malawians would like to know. Equally important is the identity and the whereabouts of their mother.