Lusaka’s haphazard naming and renaming of roads By Sampa Kabwela Recently, we woke up one morning, and our street had a new name: Lily Monze Street. Thinking it was a joke, I walked to the opposite end of the street. Alas, an identical signpost was nailed against a wall fence. My neighbours were just as surprised and in the dark. I googled Lily Monze. It turns out she was one of the only three Zambian women to obtain a university degree before independence from the University College of Nyasaland and Rhodesia. The other two were Getrude Kazunga and Mutumba Mainga. Following the establishment of UNZA in 1966, Monze became the first woman to serve on its first Council. In 1973, President Kaunda appointed her as a Member of Parliament, and went on to became a prominent leader in UNIP, serving in various positions, including as Minister of Finance and Minister of Economic Cooperation. Ms. Monze, who is now 88, was also ambassador to France in Chiluba’s administration. I quickly concluded that Madam Monze deserved a street named after her. In fact, it should have been done much earlier. I have no issue living on Lily Monze Street; what I have a problem with is the haphazard manner in which the Council has been naming and renaming roads in Lusaka over the years. They abandoned the systematic street naming of the Kaunda era. What was once a systematic, public, well-thought process appears to be a fundraising venture. Anyone with the prescribed 5pin can walk into the Council to have a street named after themselves with not much requirement. That’s how we woke up in 2021 to a Danny Pule Road. Pule and the Council found it fit to replace Kelvin Siwale Road, named after a man, I am told, played a pivotal role in establishing the Show Society of Zambia — hence naming after him the road behind the showgrounds. Lily Monze Street is displaced where the Lusaka City Council or someone has placed it. In Roma suburb, Zambezi Road is the main artery dividing north and south. On the northern side, all roads are named after water bodies: rivers, tributaries, streams, lakes, falls, and cascades. We have Mulungushi Road, Kafue Road, Kasangula Road, Kafubu Road, Kariba Crescent, Lukanga Road, Ngwerere Road, Lutuba Road, Ngwezi, Mutandwa, and so on. Then, out of nowhere and totally out of context, we have Lily Monze Street. Before we could blink, the next street became James Mapoma without notice or consultation to the residents of the affected streets. This renaming is happening under the radar, in part, because although our roads have names, most have no signposts, therefore easy to rename discreetly. On Addis Ababa Drive, a new road, Medland Road, has popped up from nowhere. Medland Hospital now has a branded road. What was the name before the change - Twikatane Road? Assuming it’s a new road altogether, how does it relate to the naming system of roads on Addis Ababa? Many such examples throughout the city of roads being named or renamed randomly, haphazardly, and without justification. Even Thabo Mbeki Road, strictly speaking, is misplaced for a Head of State of Mbeki's stature. A few years ago, the Government of Zambia petitioned the Government of Namibia for a more deserving Kenneth Kaunda Road. Zambia asked for a road with a similar grandeur as Robert Mugabe Road and Nelson Mandela Avenue that cuts through Greater Windhoek City, covering several suburbs as opposed to a tiny, going-nowhere Kenneth Kaunda Street tucked away in Katutura township. In many ways, our glory days as a country lie in the past. The UNIP years could have been our most intentional and visionary. We were pedantic and systematic. For instance, in the old CBD (Mu Town), consistency in street naming is evident — Ben Bella, Lumumba, Chachacha, Freedom Way, capturing a particular era in history. Across the City, every area and neighborhood followed a predictable pattern: Sable, Kudu, Roan, Impala, Waterbuck (Kabulonga). Solwezi, Pemba, Kasama, Mpulungu, Monze (Chilenje), to name a few. Then, somewhere along the way, I suspect in the MMD era, we started seeing random name changes and new ones. Sadam Hussein Road suddenly became Los Angeles Boulevard, in keeping with Chiluba’s then penchant for undoing everything Kaunda did. In the PF era, a new and affluent suburb was built in the State Lodge area unbeknownst to many of us. A whole new neighborhood, complete with high walls, round-the-clock patrols by paramilitary, zebras as pets, and world-class tarred roads and signposts of street names. The main artery was christened Chagwa Road, and the veins around it; Alexander Chikwanda Road, Chitotela Road and other PF cronies. The signposts have since been uprooted and the patrols stopped (after the PF lost power). Not sure of the fate of the zebras and impalas. If streets must be renamed, it must be done minimally with irrefutable justification, and the process participatory, inclusive, and transparent. It should be the same process for new and unnamed streets. It cannot be left to the whims of LCC. We, the people and residents of the City, are stakeholders and have the right to be notified (and to object if we must) of any new names as was the case in the past. Increasingly, public spaces are no longer public goods but commodities for sale, taken over by billboards, filling stations, and private interests. Sometimes, I am left to wonder to whom does the public spaces belong. Zambia is gradually becoming an informal society marked by lawlessness. Lusaka is littered with billboards carelessly mounted anywhere without consideration for the public or road safety. Our city, already ugly and characterless, has become uglier, deformed by equally ugly billboards, and other forms of advertising. We must reclaim this city, starting with our public spaces. The road naming system must change from the simple matter of identifying and paying for a name change. What will stop me from going to the Council next week to apply for a name change on the misplaced Lily Monze Road? Where do we stop? We need a robust, creative, structured road naming system — one that is consistent, inclusive, participatory, dynamic, transparent, and not so chabe.