Levi Mumba

Levi Zililo Mumba
President of the Nyasaland African Congress
In office October 1944 – January 1945
Succeeded by	Charles Matinga
Personal details
Died	January 1945
Nationality	Malawian

Levi Zililo Mumba (died January 1945) was a leading local politician and the first President of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) during the period of British colonial rule in Nyasaland, which became the independent state of Malawi in 1964. Mumba was probably the most important figure in the development of Malawi politics between World War I and World War II.

Levi Mumba was a Ngoni. He spoke the Tumbuka language as his native tongue. He was a graduate of the Overtoun Institution of the Livingstonia Mission, founded by Scottish missionaries in northern Nyasaland, which educated several of the early African leaders in the colony. Mumba passed his final examinations at the institute in 1903 with flying colors and was the first to take a commercial course. From March 1905 until 1915 he was the first African teacher of commercial subjects, as well as the bookkeeper of the Institution. He was encouraged to take a more active role in politics by Dr. G. Meredith Sanderson of the colonial medical service, author of The Yaos, a book about the Yao people.

Mumba was elected secretary of the North Nyasa Native Association when it was formed in 1912, the first of several such associations of educated "natives". In 1923 the Mwenzo Welfare Association was formed by Mumba's old school-mate, Donald Siwale, with a constitution based on that of the North Nyasa Native Association. Mumba was the architect of many of these associations, which had very similar constitutions. In a 1924 memo, Mumba described the purpose of these associations as to bring better local conditions and to represent public opinion more effectively to the colonial administrators than was done by the chiefs and headmen.

In 1924 Mumba expressed the hope that the associations could "assume national importance by amalgamation under a central body". That year, he established a Representative Committee of the Northern Provinces Associations at Zomba, the capital of Nyasaland in the southern province. His brother-in-law Mopho Jere became secretary of the Representative Committee in 1928 and its president some time before 1937. The Representative Committee forwarded complaints to the central government about the behavior of colonial officials, and made requests for government assistance in expanding cash crop farming and the retail trade.

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