'It is well with my soul': the man who built the Tonse Alliance walks out of it — while its leader sits in custody

The Tonse Alliance lost its architect on Friday. Dr Chris Zumani Zimba, the coalition's founder and suspended secretary general, announced his resignation in a first-person note on his Facebook page, citing "unhealthy conflicts" and what he called "evil schemes from rival camps". "I hereby resign from Tonse alliance in peace," he wrote. "I wish everyone God's grace. It is well with my soul!" The exit takes the man who built the alliance out of it while its president, Brian Mundubile, remains in custody facing treason-related allegations.

The break, as Dr Zumani tells it, goes back to the declaration of the election result. "The moment ECZ declared HH as the winner regardless of how he won, everything became academic for anyone who opposed or disputed that election," he wrote, adding that he called at once for dialogue and reconciliation between President Hichilema and Mr Mundubile. In August, he said, he publicly withdrew from any association with a presidential petition — a position he said a virtual Council of Leaders, chaired by first vice president Chifumu Banda, SC, had itself resolved, agreeing that Mr Mundubile and his running mate Makebi Zulu could petition in their individual capacities without involving the alliance.

Days later, a suspension letter — allegedly signed by Mr Mundubile — reached him through social media. The alliance had confirmed in September that its secretary general was suspended under Article 13(6) of its constitution pending investigation, citing unauthorised public communications. Dr Zumani's statement suggests he does not believe the jailed leader wrote the letter: he declined to fight it, he said, out of prayer — he quoted Proverbs 3:5-6 — out of his own experience of imprisonment in 2023, and out of loyalty to a man he had given a platform when, as he put it, the PF humiliated him and others dismissed him as "a UPND project". "A wise king like BM can never fight one of his true and key makers," he wrote.

The twelve-point statement ranges further: over the January 2026 General Congress he says he engineered, which elected four officers — Mr Mundubile as president, Mr Banda as first vice president, Ms Exilder Mwenya as second vice president and Dr Zumani as secretary general — and into an accusation the alliance has not answered. Some forces in WOZA, PF Pamodzi and Tonse itself, he wrote, are staging false support for Mr Mundubile while privately wanting him "legally fixed overnight", repeating what he described as the false loyalty shown to the late Edgar Lungu during the Constitutional Court eligibility case. "We have watched this movie before!" he wrote.

He closed with Hebrews 12:14 and Matthew 5:9 — "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God" — and said he leaves still convinced that peace and reconciliation with President Hichilema is the best path for Mr Mundubile. The alliance, whose acting leadership is simultaneously managing a constitutional petition over its leader's detention, had not responded publicly by press time. What a Tonse without its founder becomes — and who, in practice, now speaks for it — is the question the opposition carries into the weekend.

Sources: Lusaka Times, "Zumani Quits Tonse Alliance, Says Mundubile Signed Suspension Letter Others Wrote" (2 Oct 2026); The Zambian Observer, "Chris Zumani ditches Tonse Alliance" (2 Oct 2026); reporting on the September suspension of the Tonse secretary general under Article 13(6) (Sep 2026); public statement of Dr Chris Zumani Zimba (2 Oct 2026).