"...age for me wasn’t an issue. It’s love,”
FIRST lady Thandiwe Banda has revealed that her love affair with President Rupiah Banda started after his granddaughter introduced her to him in Chipata.

And Thandiwe has said she will support President Banda if he decides to run for a second term of office in next year's elections.

Featuring on BBC Network Africa programme, Thandiwe, 38, said the wide age difference between President Banda, 73, and her was not an issue.

“We met through his extended grandchild. I was doing her hair and then one day she said, ‘you need to finish my hair. I need to see my grandfather and stuff like that.’ So when we went to the farm, that time he was in Chipata, we went to his farm in Chipata and I just said, ‘hello! hello,’” Thandiwe explained.

“After doing her hair, he dropped me home where I was staying with my brother and then he asked about what I was doing. So I said, ‘I was a teacher in Chiparamba’. That was his home village. So he said: ‘you teach in Chiparamba but you are from the Copperbelt?’ So I said, ‘yes!’ So he said, ‘oh! Okay!’”
Thandiwe said she also told him that she was studying at Chalimbana… in Chongwe.

“I then told him that I also go to school. That time I was also doing distance learning at Chalimbana in Lusaka. So he said, ‘oh! I have a house in Lusaka. Maybe one day I will come and visit you when you are at school in Chalimbama.’ We visited and from there this is where we ended,” Thandiwe explained.

She also said Banda did not believe when she phoned and informed him that she was expecting twins.

“At that moment I didn’t know I was expecting. I was just feeling my stomach like bloating a lot, so that is when I went to have a scan to see what was happening. So when I went to the hospital, I had a scan. The doctor, the one who did the scan, asked me: ‘are you pregnant?’ I said: “no!” Then he went back to call somebody and then they came to tell me, ‘ooh! I think you are pregnant and you are expecting two’,” Thandiwe explained.

“I wasn’t very surprised because I come from a family of twins but when I told my husband, he said ‘no!’ because I was telling him on the phone. I was in Lusaka, he was in Chipata then. So when I called him to tell him that I am expecting and they said, ‘it’s two’. He said: ‘no!’ He wasn’t ready. Maybe he was ready for one but not two. It was a pleasant shocker I gave him.”
Thandiwe said it was quite hard to be a mother and perform duties of a first lady.

“They twins are quite demanding as you can see they are very young. I try by all means to help them with home work and they want to play outside, I do some football with them,” Thandiwe said.

“As a wife I am supposed not to be too demanding because he is the President of Zambia. When he comes home I have to make him feel he is welcome home and talk about what really makes him happy, being a father and a grandfather.”

Thandiwe also said her being young and attractive made President Banda “come home to that as well”.
“I do love my husband; I think that is why I got married to him because age for me wasn’t an issue. It’s love,” Thandiwe said.

Thandiwe, a political science teacher, said she does not advise her husband about which minister to fire or not.

However, Thandiwe said she advises President Banda on family issues but not politics.

“He is a good listener. I advise him only family issues; I am not a politician myself,” Thandiwe said.
She also said during her days as a teacher, she was teaching pupils that if the ruling government was not performing, the opposition parties were an alternative.

“I was teaching about alternative government, which is opposition government. If the government which is ruling is not able to govern, you have an alternative government. But my kids at school would laugh and say, ‘but that is not what is happening in our country.’ Really and what we teach is very different,” Thandiwe said.

Thandiwe said the people of Zambia or President Banda should decide on whether he should run for a second term or not.

When interviewer, Veronique Edwards, pressed her further on whether she would support President Banda if decided to re-contest his position, Thandiwe responded: “Of course, I will support my husband. I will go with it. For him to decide that he wants to stand again there must be a good reason. He is a man of his own. If he says he needs to stand, there must be a good reason to that and I will support him.”

On change of status and dressing as first lady, Thandiwe said she was not bothered about dressing but it was true that as first lady she has to be exemplary.

“Yes everything changes. I can’t dress the way I used to dress before. I used to wear normal clothes that you see a mother with two kids wears; easy clothes, jeans and t-shirts to get around. But now I can’t do that,” she said.

“There are some clothes that I can’t wear because everybody is looking at me. So many young people are looking to see what I am doing. So I need to be a role model. Dress accordingly.”
Thandiwe said, for security reasons, she buys her children’s clothes abroad.

“I buy them when I am outside, not in Zambia. I used to buy in Zambia but because of security, it’s like a commotion and everybody wants to see what I am buying. I do buy but indirectly. I have extended family. My daughters and sons help me; they go with them and buy,” Thandiwe said. “My own clothes I have a Zambian designer, these are Zambian fabrics, so I just get the fabrics and then I tell him, ‘if you can make this into this.’ That is how I make my clothes.”

She also said it would be good for first ladies to have offices and budgets to help the needy in society.
“I think so because they have so much burdens, so much work on them. They need to have an office. They need to be supported,” Thandiwe said.

However, she reaffirmed her position not to form her own charitable Non Governmental Organisation (NGO).

“When I became a first lady, for the first six months, I was just trying to see what they have done, what helped, what hasn’t helped and what can be workable for me. So I decided not to form an NGO. I decided to work with existing NGOs because I have seen that the former first ladies have had NGOs and the time that they leave office, their NGOs become non existence,” Thandiwe said.

“So for myself, I thought why not just help the existing ones because they are already there? There are so many of them so to just help upgrade them to a standard that we could see them to be helping the marginalized in our society.”

Thandiwe said she was the patron of the White Ribbon Alliance, which helps safe motherhood.
“I am working with the existing NGOs who are already on the ground. By doing that we are able to accomplish my…I go to rural areas, hospitals to visit and see in any simple way or any way that I can do to help them,” said Thandiwe.

She said so many Zambians looked up to her for help.

“It is quite frustrating because so many people look up to me to say, ‘solve this problem.’ When I tell them, ‘I don’t have, I am not even in the Constitution.’ They can’t believe, ‘what is this woman saying? This is the first lady of our country; she is supposed to do miracles’,” said Thandiwe. “It is quite hard but I try to work with the cooperating partners who are on the ground and we have helped a few. I think we will get there.”