No one could do it like Eddie

 

JACK ZIMBA


NO, he was not called “Commander” for nothing. When it came to photography, no one could do it like Eddie Mwanaleza.
One afternoon, about 14 years ago, a stout man with a thick moustache walked into the production room at The Post. He was wearing a pair of khaki shorts, boots and a photo journalist's vest. He had a big camera hanging from his shoulder.
That was my first introduction to Eddie, and we would become companions over the years, ganging up on many assignments that satisfied our appetite for adventure and quest to bring out unusual stories.
Our first assignment was an adventure trip to Livingstone by train, just to capture life on the tardy train.
Eddie was cunning when it came to searching for unusual stories and he was never one to sit behind a desk. Eddie was born for the outdoors, the more unfamiliar the territory the better.
One morning we rode into the notorious Chibolya township on a motorbike disguised as music promoters. We came out with our skins, a story and pictures about life in the underworld of illicit drugs and criminal activity.  
Eddie was driven by rare passion in his work. When Eddie had a camera in his hands, he was like a little boy with candy and would stop at nothing to get his pictures, and they were never ordinary images.
Eddie gave life to still pictures. I remember how we would gather around his computer in the production room at The Post whenever he returned from a trip and we would all muse at his pictures. There was always something unusual about his images. It didn’t matter whether the subject was a Catholic nun or a half-dressed beauty model.
And yes he could be naughty sometimes.
I remember once when we published, in The Post, a picture he took of a female cop in a figure-hugging trousers, with the caption “Tight security”.
We would still laugh about it several years later.
Eddied was also the been there, done that kind of guy.
There is not a place that I went to with Eddie – and there are numerous places around the country – that Eddie had not been to, and he would tell interesting stories about those places.
Why don’t you write a book? I always prodded him.
There was also no place we went to where Eddie did not know someone, or where he was not known.
If he did not know anyone, he would easily strike up a conversation with a total stranger, and soon they would be exchanging phone numbers and vital information, laughing and high-fiving.
Eddie never introduced people by name, but by their stories. This is so and so, he is the one who did such and such, he would say.
Oh, I hated Eddie for that. Yes, I was jealousy of him – I always wished I was the one so free-spirited and gregarious.
I remember one morning arriving at Jomo Kenyata Airport in Nairobi Kenya. We were both walking to the conveniences and Eddie was on the phone talking to his wife, Diana. Reaching the door, instead of hanging up, he just handed the phone to the janitor.
“Hey talk to my wife,” he said.
The janitor was puzzled but obliged. That was Eddie.
He was also a great negotiator and great organiser. There was nothing impossible with Eddie.
No, you never got stuck with Eddie, he always had something up his sleeve.
In fact, that is how he earned his moniker, “Commander”.
He always fancied himself as a problem solver and always got into the mix of things, it was like he got a kick out of it.
“They don’t call me commander for nothing,” he would say afterwards.
He was also a living encyclopedia who had information on a myriad of subjects, and had the background to every story.
EARLY CAREER
Eddie Mwanaleza began his career back in the 1980s after training as a photographer in Zimbabwe.
Later he came to Lusaka where he got a job at a studio that belonged to an Indian.
One day, a coloured man walked into the studio and asked Eddie to go out into the streets of Lusaka and capture the different daily scenes – people eating at restaurants, at a bus stop or in a shop.
Eddie did his assignment, developed the images and a few days later he met the coloured man in his office. The man gazed at the images and was impressed with what he saw.
“How much does the Indian pay you?” he asked the young man.
When Eddie mentioned the amount, the coloured man offered Eddie three times more, plus a small Fiat car for running errands. It was an offer Eddie could not refuse.
That coloured man was the legendary Errol Hickey.
For the next few years Eddie worked for Mr Hickey, taking photographs for advertisements before joining the mainstream media where he covered many major events. Name it, Eddie was there.
Eddie worked with two presidents – President Michael Sata and President Edgar Lungu – and had been friends with former President Frederick Chiluba before he became president.
As presidential photographer, he was loyal to his boss to the core, and no matter how I tried, I could never get him to say anything negative about him, even when there might have been a reason to do so.
He would simply keep silent or change the subject.
Eddie also adored his wife, Diana. He always called her “the first lady.”
He also had a weakness for coffee; he could swear by it.

THE LAST CALL
The commander always seemed full of life, aging gracefully; his body seeming untouched by time, with no strand of grey hair on his head, which, of course, was highly suspicious.
But on the evening of July 21, he sent me a text message saying: “I travelled on the open police escort vehicle from Kalulushi to Ndola, then to Luanshya and back to Ndola…I developed a serious cold.”
“Can I call you,” he texted.
He called and we talked.
Eddie had been on the Copperbelt on duty.
A few days later when I could not reach him on all his mobile phone lines, I knew something was amiss. The commander never stayed incommunicado.
I later learned from his wife that Eddie had been hospitalised, and was being treated for COVID-19. 
On August 2, his wife texted me:
“Hi Jack, good morning. The Commander is on his way to recovery… they don’t call him commander for nothing.”
It was an uplifting message.
But last Saturday morning, I got another text from Diana saying: “The condition is bad.”
Moments later, the commander was gone.
On my mobile phone are numerous images which he sent me over the months, all bearing the signature of the commander – poignant images of people and sunsets.
Yes, Eddie loved to take pictures of the sunset, and now the sun has set on his illustrious life and career.
Go well, Eddie.