The news is now all over that on the night of last Sunday, 21 February, 2021, burglars broke into the Office of the Vice President, Dr Saulos Chilima, and managed to go away with some valuable items.

Another news which is even fresher is that on Wednesday; at around 7 pm, some thugs in police uniforms hijacked the official car of Minister of Civic Education and National Unity, Timothy Mtambo, and made away with it from Lilongwe to Bwengu, North Mzimba, where they dumped it after they committed an accident. The criminals ran away and the driver of the car who had his legs and arms tied by the bandits, and was bundled in the boot of the car, was saved by the community members at the scene of the accident.

No news is good news, and the two are the most terrible news for our ears; particularly because of statuses of the victims of the break-in and the carjacking.

I mean, let someone help me understand something here. We all know where the said Office of the Veep is located: at the Capital Hill. We all also know the size of security details assigned thereto; considering his status.

This is the office of the second citizen of the state. At all costs, the tightest security ought to be prioritised at this citizen; both at his office and home. However, the burglary news at the second citizen’s office, sends a message that someone within the system knows what they want to expose: that the current leadership has  thrown security to the dogs.

For the carjacking, on the other hand, the carjackers were clad in police uniforms. The truth here is that those uniforms are never meant for any Jim and Jack but for our well trained security officers only. So, the obvious questions are: who are these uniformed thugs?Where do they access the uniforms? And are they our very police officers turning into thugs? Your answers to these questions are as good as mine!

As if this police uniformed incident was not shameful enough to the nation, rumour has it that few weeks ago, another gang of thugs in police uniforms broke into a night club in Lilongwe under the disguise of enforcing Covid-19 preventive curfews. These thugs bolted with different items belonging to the bar owner.

Looking at the above incidents, something is clearly coming out: these thugs are well calculated and strategically deployed criminals  by the very same system; hitting either from within it or outside but well and directly connected to the current elements of it. I mean the former government used to call itself a ‘system’!  That system lives on despite the change in government.

We used to hear time and again that DPP was a system. So, upon realising that situation was becoming harder and more unpredictable for them, those folks might have prepared their rufians with both skills and equipment so as to destabilise the incoming government with insecurities of this nature.

Remember when DPP was in power, we heard that some of its cadres were given dangerous weapons; including guns and full police uniforms which they used for attacking any of their dissidents. It may even still remain a case that some of the rufians are still here both within the public service and outside but with a very robust connection through which sensitive security information is passed on from one end the other.

However, what is a fact is that the situation we are in is a microcosm of the highest degree of security lapses in the country; of which, if the highly protected citizens are facing it in this manner, then every commoner should fear for their lives because it means no one is safe now.

 Of course, the decline in the national security is no shocker at all as we hear that even some security officers in the security agencies of the nation also perpetrate the insecurity for their own interests; some of which  could be unbendable loyalists to the former leadership, who are still biting from within!

Let Chakwera know that  not all civil servants he found in the government are  happy with the change of leadership or worse still with him as a person. So there is every chance that some of those frustrated gurus may do everything possible to deliberately sabotage the efforts of the current government in order to render it helpless and clueless.

Be what it may; the picture being painted is that Chakwera and his henchmen are failing to tighten their grip of governance; particularly, national security and so they are failures.

But it is a fact that strong security is the most vital ingredient for the development of any country. And since way back, Malawi has never had the strongest, most dependable and most convenient internal security and this is notwithstanding the fact that she has been an independent nation for over half a century; which means as sovereign state, the country has had all the time to invest heavily in national security.

As the cases of insecurity are taking their course at this end, other national vices such the K6.2 billion Covid-19 scandal are manifesting themselves at the end. Which means it never yet easy for Chakwera.

So, he must know that the rubble he intends to clear is huger than he imagines!