Albert Muwalo

Albert Andrew Muwalo Gandale Nqumayo (1927 – 1977) was a prominent politician in Malawi from the 1960s until he was sacked in 1976 and was executed in 1977.

Albert Andrew Muwalo Gandale Nqumayo (or Ngumayo) was born in Ntcheu District, of Maseko Ngoni parentage on 23 June 1927, the second of seven children, all sons.

After primary education at Gowa Mission in Ntcheu District, he attended the secondary school at Blantyre Mission, gaining a Junior Certificate in 1945.

He entered politics in the mid 1950s through involvement in a hospital worker's trade union and membership of the Nyasaland African Congress, where his activities led to his detention without trial during the 1959 State of Emergency in Nyasaland.

During the mid-1950s, his ambition was to undertake further study in Britain, but his detention in 1959 put an end to this, and he did not obtain the further education achieved by several of those who became ministers in 1961 and 1962.

During his time at the hospital, he became involved in trade union activities through the Nyasaland African Medical Orderlies union, becoming its Secretary-General.

He joined the Ntcheu branch of the Nyasaland African Congress and was active in demonstrating against the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

He worked at Zomba African Hospital, and undertook further study in evening classes at the hospital.Mr Muwalo obtained a certificate in Medical Laboratory Technology in 1954 as well as working as a medical assistant for 13 years.

During the State of Emergency declared in March 1959, he was detained without trial in Nyasaland, unlike the most senior Congress members, who were imprisoned in Southern Rhodesia.

After his release, he joined the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), and became active in its organisation, first in Ntcheu town and later as a party member and then Chairman of the MCP in Ntcheu District.

Most of the ministerial appointees in 1961 and 1962 were relatively young, generally under 35 (only Orton Chirwa was over 40), with at least secondary, and often higher, education.

A disproportionate number of these came from the Northern Region, because several mission schools there taught to a high standard.

The group ranking just below the ministers, which included Muwalo, consisted of local MCP bosses who were generally older than the first group and usually less well educated but with stronger local ties than them, and often came from the Central and Southern regions.

After his release, he joined the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), and became locally prominent in Ntcheu District as district MCP chairman and from 1962 as Member of Parliament for Ntcheu South.

Between 1962 and 1964, he was Chairman of Ntcheu District Council.

In 1963, he became Administrative Secretary of the MCP, and he was a prominent supporter of the then-Prime Minister, Hastings Banda during the Cabinet Crisis of 1964.

Albert Muwalo became Administrative Secretary of the Malawi Congress Party in April 1963, in succession to Yatuta Chisiza, and he became the party's Secretary General in 1973.

Differences between Banda and his ministers arose after the 1963 election.

From October 1963, Banda began to make slighting references to them in public speeches and accused some of them of forming a cabal against him.

He dismissed one minister, took away another's responsibilities without removing him from the cabinet and reassigned portfolios in a cabinet reshuffle.

As well as being Prime Minister, Banda retained four ministerial portfolios, devolving the day-to-day work to parliamentary secretaries.

All this diminished the power and influence of the ministers.

Banda also continued diplomatic relations with South Africa and Portugal, but refused to recognise the People's Republic of China or East Germany, and contemptuously rejected suggestions of forming closer ties with Zambia and Tanzania.

The slow pace of Africanization in the Civil Service, the freezing of Civil Service salaries and the introduction of a charge for outpatients at state hospitals were all seen as failing to pass the benefits of independence to the people.

Muwalo was rewarded for his loyalty with the cabinet post of Minister of Information in 1964, and in 1966 he became Minister of State in the President's Office.

Muwalo was Member of Parliament for Ntcheu South between 1964 and 1967, when he resigned owing to the pressures of his MCP work, although the seat was later held by his younger brother, Daniel.

He entered the cabinet as Minister of Information in 1964, and became Minister of State in the President's Office in 1966 and Minister without Portfolio in 1976.

After the 1964 crisis, several of them replaced the former ministers.

At the cabinet meeting of 26 August 1964, all the ministers present raised their concerns with Banda and presented him with a list of grievances.

A number of ministers led by Yatutu Chisiza apparently wished to convert Banda's role from that of Prime Minister who expected to become an executive President, to that of a future President without executive functions, with an appointed Prime Minister as head of government.

During the Cabinet Crisis of 1964, on 27 August Banda consulted Muwalo and Aleke Banda as leading officials of the MCP to ensure that leading party members in all three regions of Malawi supported him, rather than supporting the ministers who opposed him.

Banda advised Glyn Smallwood Jones, the Governor-General on 1 September of his intention to resign, which would automatically end the tenure of the other ministers.

On his own reappointment he would reappoint the ministers, except for Kanyama Chiume, Yatuta Chisiza and possibly John Msonthi and Chipembere.

The Governor-General advised him to seek a vote of confidence in parliament rather than resign, and on the day that this vote began Banda secured the dismissal of three cabinet ministers: three others resigned in solidarity.

President Banda saw Muwalo and Aleke Banda a great deal in September 1964, and their comments and the unity of the ex-ministers led him to believe that the latter were conspiring against him.

The attempts of the Governor-General to secure a compromise after the vote of confidence led to an undertaking by Banda to reinstate the ministers, except for Chiume, Chisiza and Chipembere: he wished for the appointment four new ministers, including Muwalo, possibly as Minister of Health.

His close contact with Banda, both as minister in Banda's office and in the MCP gave him great power and, during the first half of the 1970s he and his relative, the Head of the Police Special Branch Focus Gwede, were heavily involved in the political repression of actual or suspected opponents of the Banda regime.

In 1976 he and Gwede were arrested: the reasons for their arrests were unclear, but may have resulted from a power struggle among those around the ageing president or simply because he became too powerful and may have been seen by Banda as a threat.

In 1977, the two were tried before a Traditional Court and after a trial whose fairness was in serious doubt, were both sentenced to death.

Gwede was reprieved, but Muwalo was hanged on 3 September 1977.