Gospel concert ends in unholy war over one bent pipe

The worship is over. The war has begun.

Nine days after Malawi music galactico Theresa Phondo’s big night at BICC, the people who built her stage are fighting like jilted lovers on X (formerly Twitter). Lawyers have been threatened, a WhatsApp group has been abandoned, and the whole country is watching.

The fight is over one bent truss and a K5 million bill. A truss is a rigid structural framework made of straight beams, bars, or rods connected at joints (called nodes) to form an interconnected system of triangles.

In one corner is Timothy ‘Timmy’ Ntilosanje, co-founder of The Sunday Soirée. In the other is Bob Phondo, the gospel star’s manager and husband.

Bob’s version: the concert hired just four dome trusses from the Soirée, not the whole stage, for K4 million. Another K1.4 million went on putting them up and taking them down. Total paid: K5.4 million, he says, every kwacha.

Then disaster. Bob says a truss hit an electric line while on a 10-tonne truck he had hired on the Soirée’s own orders, with a Soirée worker on board showing the driver the way. The pipes are hollow. The truss bent.

Bob says he owned it. He met Timothée’s team and said he would take full responsibility. But he wanted them to admit it was an accident.

“I got a call that ONE of the trusses was tripped by an electric line, and because paja its pipes are hollow, it’s bent and damaged.
I called Timmy immediately, we spoke, and I asked him to assess the damage and let me know. He then asked for a physical meeting, with his team, and I met them. I told them I take full responsibility coz the thing was under my care, but I asked them to also acknowledge that there was an element of an accident. But still, I assured them I will take responsibility”.

Then came the bill. About K5 million, Bob says, to fix one truss. He says he called it too high and asked to check the prices and pay the welders himself. Timothée said no to everything, according to Bob.

“The Damage Cost: He then created a WhatsApp group, and informed me it will cost around K5mil to fix the single truss that was damaged. I immediately responded that I think the cost is too high, and that we will need to involve my team during procurement process, to verify prices. Also we should be allowed to directly engage and pay whichever welders they select. I also mentioned that since these are not small figures, the issue may not be resolved as quickly as they demanded.

Bob says he was then kicked out of the WhatsApp group.

“He responded by denying all my propositions” said Bob. When he tried to talk on Monday, he says, the reply was cold: “no need. it’s out of my hands now.”

Bob now says he is done talking.

On his part, the Soirée co-founder Lord Timothée says his team hired out its new stage for the concert and delivered it from Blantyre Open to BICC “in mint condition.” He says the Phondo camp insisted on taking the stage back to the warehouse themselves, instead of using the agency that handles the Soirée’s logistics. The Soirée agreed, “for the culture.”

Big mistake, he says. According to Timmy, the Phondo team crammed the whole stage into one truck to save trips, and it came back “damaged and unrecognizable.”

He says the Soirée sent repair and replacement costs with a timeline, because it needs the stage for December and plans to sell it when its 2027 stage is built. The Phondo side accepted responsibility, he says, but complained the costs were too high and asked to handle the materials, transport and labour themselves. The Soirée refused, saying that was “how we got here.”

Since last week, Timmy says, he has been ghosted. Calls unanswered, messages ignored, “yet active across socials.”

The concert was Theresa Phondo’s first solo headline event, held on 31 October 2026 with Nigerian gospel star Ada Ehi and Zambia’s Pompi. It was billed as a night of gratitude. The gratitude did not last.