By Duncan Mlanjira
Malawi’s longest serving Speaker of Parliament Nelson Khonje died on Sunday at his home in Mwanza District.
He has died with just 12 days away from his 96th birthday.
Born on 6th December, 1923, served as Speaker of the National Assembly for 12 years from 1975-1987 and as an MP for Mwanza Central for 21 years.
Wikipedia records indicate that Nelson P. W. Khonje was born in Neno, Malawi and went to school at Matandani and Malamulo Seventh Day Adventist schools.
Longest serving Speaker of Parliament
The records indicate that he taught whilst upgrading himself and by 1959 had qualified for Cambridge O-Level through correspondence.
In 1962, alongside late Aaron Gadama, he applied for a scholarship and was sent to Moray House College of Education in Edinburgh, Scotland.
On his return to Malawi in 1964, he taught at Masongola, Ntcheu and Ntchisi Secondary Schools up to 1971.
When Mwanza was de-linked from Blantyre as a district in 1971, he was asked by the constituents to represent them as their MP and became first legislator for Mwanza in the same year.
In 1974, he was made a Deputy Speaker of Parliament and was made full speaker in 1975, a position he held up to his retirement in 1987.
He holds the record of being Malawi’s longest serving speaker of the National Assembly, under the rule of Malawi Congress Party led by late Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda.