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38 The Society of Malawi Journal

militancy of those comments resulted in Banda being prohibited from re-entering
the colony. However, he returned against his will in the following March to
endure a year of detention in Southern Rhodesia following the declaration of dual
states of emergency by the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia and the Governor
of Nyasaland. During this time the proscribed Nyasaland African Congress
reconstituted as the Malawi Congress Party. The emergency remained in force
8
until June 1960.
The Rhodesian and Federal authorities only freed Banda on April 1, 1960
following intense pressure from the British. 9 Within a week of his release he
travelled to the UK, generating a level of international attention that would have
10
greatly disturbed the Federal authorities. As it became clear that the Federation
no longer enjoyed carte blanche to handle the gathering political crisis as it saw
fit, its political representatives flailed about for means to undermine Banda’s
leadership of the MCP. Arguably the most sensational overt effort came from
Humphrey Wightwick, a Southern Rhodesian MP in his mid-50s representing the
Salisbury South constituency.

Wightwick’s Accusation:
Humphrey Wightwick was born in Australia, educated in England at
Weymouth College and had spent most of his life in India before emigrating to
11
Southern Rhodesia in 1947. He believed that the inclusion of Nyasaland in the
Federation had been a mistake and in January 1959 introduced the Central African
Alliance Plan that advocated bringing Southern Rhodesia into closer alignment
with the white dominated areas of Northern Rhodesia and creating a looser form
12
of association with Nyasaland.
His salacious charges in the Federal Parliament on April 13, 1960 arose
during the course of debate on a motion on the necessity “of keeping political

8 John McCracken, A History of Malawi, 1859-1966 (Woodbridge: James
Currey, 2012), 140.
9 Welensky, 4000 Days, 172; McCracken, History of Malawi, 145.
10 “Dr Banda to Appear on Television To-day.” The Guardian (Manchester),
April 7, 1960.
11 “Wightwick, Humphrey Dudley.” Who’s Who of Southern Africa
(Johannesburg: Combined Publishers, 1962); US National Archives, College
Park, Maryland (hereafter ‘NARA’), Record Group 59 (hereafter ‘RG59’),
Department of State, Central Files, Box 1691, 745c.00/1-361, January 11, 1961,
AmConGen, Salisbury to Department of State.
12 NARA, RG 59, Box 1690, 745c.00/1-760, February 3, 1960, AmConGen,
Salisbury to Department of State; JRT Wood, The Welensky Papers: A History
of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (Durban: Graham Publishing,
1983), 635.