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
Nyasaland Emergency 1959 Later research has established the degree of interference by the Federal and Southern Rhodesian governments in the declaration of the Nyasaland Emergency. Although it was claimed at the time that the Southern Rhodesian Premier, Whitehead, had proclaimed a State of Emergency there to free up troops to send to Nyasaland in response to the concerns Armitage had expressed in mid-February, it is now clear that Whitehead had been planning to suppress the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC) since December 1958, despite little or no evidence that it was acting unlawfully, and that he had Welensky's approval for this action.