Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 1958 Hastings Banda, the leader of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) (later Malawi Congress Party), returned from Great Britain to Nyasaland, while in October the militant Kenneth Kaunda became the leader of the Zambian African National Congress (ZANC), a split from the Northern Rhodesian ANC. The increasingly rattled CAF authorities banned ZANC in March 1959, and in June imprisoned Kaunda for nine months. While Kaunda was in gaol, his loyal lieutenant Mainza Chona worked with other African nationalists to create the United National Independence Party (UNIP), a successor to ZANC. In early 1959, unrest broke out in Nyasaland, which, according
Operation Sunrise (Nyasaland) as they toured the protectorate led to unrest including demonstrations and the intimidation of opponents. On the 6th July 1958, Hastings Banda returned to Nyasaland at the invitation of the activists to lead a movement against Federation and towards independence. Banda, together with some of these lieutenants, toured the country rousing support and the disturbances continued. At the end of 1958, Banda and other NAC leaders attended an All-African People’s Conference in Accra, in recently-independent Ghana, and they returned to Nyasaland determined to press for constitutional change. When the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was set up in 1953, provision