‘I REFUSE’ – BISHOP SAKALA REJECTS THE MILITIA LABEL PLACED ON MUTOTWE KAFWAYA
‘I REFUSE’ – BISHOP SAKALA REJECTS THE LABEL PLACED ON MUTOTWE KAFWAYA
The grief surrounding the death of former Cabinet Minister Mutotwe Kafwaya took an emotional turn as Bishop Harrison Sakala delivered a powerful defence of the man he knew beyond the headlines.
Speaking at Kafwaya’s funeral, Bishop Sakala rejected what he described as a label that should never have followed the late politician to his grave.
“I agree with the wife when she says you did not deserve to die carrying such a label. Yes, not the Mutotwe Kafwaya I knew. Not the son I have known. Not the person whose life and character I came to know. I REFUSE.”
The words were not delivered as a political statement, but as the painful cry of someone struggling to reconcile the man he knew with the image that had come to surround his death.
For Bishop Sakala, Kafwaya was not a headline, a political accusation or the label placed on him.
He was a son.
A human being whose life, according to those who knew him closely, cannot be reduced to the circumstances surrounding his final day.
The Bishop’s words carried the weight of a family mourning not only a loved one, but also the painful burden of having to defend his name after his death.
There was something particularly heartbreaking about the words “I refuse.”
It was more than disagreement. It was a refusal to allow death to have the final word on the character of a man he had known personally.
Hon. Kafwaya died at 49, leaving behind family, friends, political colleagues and a nation still grappling with the circumstances of his death.
At his funeral, the politics seemed to momentarily disappear.
What remained was grief.
And behind that grief was a simple plea, remember the man he was, not the label placed on him in his final moments.
As the mourners gathered to say their final goodbye, Bishop Sakala’s voice became one of the voices reclaiming Kafwaya’s humanity from the noise that surrounded his final chapter.
Because in death, as in life, a person is more than an allegation.
More than a headline.
More than a political identity.
And for Bishop Sakala, the Mutotwe Kafwaya he knew deserves to be remembered as the son, friend and human being whose life meant something to those who loved him.
“That label? No Not the Mutotwe Kafwaya I knew… I REFUSE.”