FROM RIVERS TO SYSTEMS: THE NEW PREDATORS OF MALAWI
By Victor Ogotomelli Ntaukira
The history of Malawi offers a haunting metaphor. One that has evolved but never truly disappeared.
During the 30-year rule of Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda (1964 – 1994), it is widely recounted that political dissidents were silenced through brutal means, including being thrown alive into waters infested with starved-crocodiles.
Thus, crocodiles in Malawi symbolise a system that devoured life, freedom and dissent.
When the wind of multiparty democracy hoovered over Malawi in 1994, Malawians celebrated, hoping that they had finally bolted from the jaws of these predators.
But history has a way of reinventing itself. While the physical crocodiles have receded into the annals of history, a more insidious breed has emerged.
Today, corruption has taken their place.
However, the modern crocodile does not feed on human flesh. It feeds on our dreams, opportunities and the very future of the nation.
Corruption, like a crocodile, is stealthy and patient.
It lurks beneath the surface of society, hidden in inflated contracts, misused public funds, ghost workers and unjustified allowances.
Just as a crocodile waits silently for the right moment to strike, corruption thrives in secrecy.
By the time it becomes noticeable, the damage is already deep and often irreversible.
However, corruption does not thrive on secrecy alone. It feeds on appeasement.
Appeasement by definition involves yielding to harmful forces in the hope of avoiding conflict.
It is the quiet tolerance of wrongdoing, the decision to play the Ostrich, the justification that “this is how things are done here.” Public officials who inflate contracts, misuse funds or demand bribes are the crocodiles.
Yet, equally complicit are those individuals who choose to remain silent out of fear or loyalty and those who benefit from corrupt practices. These are the feeders of the crocodile.
By feeding the crocodiles through silence, complicity or passive acceptance, society allows corruption to grow stronger and more insatiable thereby creating the very force that will ultimately consume it.
In this new reality, Winston Churchill’s warning that “an appeaser is one who feeds the crocodile, hoping it will eat him last” rings with a striking relevance.
This statement captures the dangerous illusions at the heart of Malawi’s struggle.
Churchill’s metaphor exposes a tragic misconception. It creates a belief that one can coexist safely with a destructive force.
Many people believe that corruption harms only others such as the government, distant institutions or future generations.
But corruption is indiscriminate. Like a crocodile that does not choose its prey, corruption eventually consumes everyone.
For instance, a civil servant who demands or accepts bribes will later face prosecution and lose job thereby putting one’s family in turmoil.
A politician who enables corruption or protects corrupt networks may one day fall victim to the same system and end up complaining of political witch-hunting.
Ordinary citizens, even those uninvolved, suffer through poor healthcare, failing education systems, unemployment and persistent poverty and blame government for pitiable social services.
Hospitals run without essential drugs. Schools, in 21stcentury, have no desks and science laboratories. Infrastructural projects like the Tsangano-Mwanza-Neno road and Joyce Chitsulo Stadium stall and collapse respectively.
The aspirations of the youth are crushed under the weight of limited opportunities. Each act of corruption is a bite on the flesh of Malawi’s future.
Like a crocodile, corruption does not stop once it is fed. It grows stronger and more aggressive. What begins as a minor, but deliberate, act of corruption gradually escalates into systemic decay.
In such a society, a tragic reversal of moral order occurs where honesty is mocked and integrity is seen as naïve.
Overtime, corruption becomes normalised. It ceases to shock and instead becomes expected. People start baptising corruption with such names like connections, social capital and graces.
Ironically, corruption is more dangerous than the crocodiles of the past. Those earlier reptiles were limited in number and location. Their threat, though terrifying, was identifiable hence avoidable. Corruption, by contrast, is pervasive. It infiltrates every sector, making it hard to detect and even harder to eradicate.
Worse still, corruption does not merely destroy lives but also erodes values, replacing integrity with gluttony and accountability with impunity.
Perhaps the most dangerous form of appeasement of corruption occurs at institutional level.
In the fight against corruption, appeasement is not neutrality but rather, complicity.
When oversight bodies fail to act decisively, when investigations are delayed, or when justice is applied selectively, for instance when suspects of corruption have their cases dismissed once ruling parties change, the state itself becomes an accomplice in corruption.
In Malawi, cases of financial mismanagement and inflated contracts have oftentimes been met with weak law enforcement, political interference and prolonged legal processes.
A good and fresh example is the Public Service Pension Fund’s controversial purchase of Amaryllis Hotel in Blantyre whose valuation ballooned from K45 billion to K128 billion.
Failure or delays by responsible institutions and officers to take action signal that corruption is tolerable. This is feeding the crocodile.
The cost of this appeasement is painfully tangible. Economic growth is stifled. Public trust in government gets eroded.
Ever wondered why there is an increase in cases of mob justice these days?
Citizens have lost trust in the police. Corruption is more serious because it does not merely slow development but devours it.
Winston Churchill’s warning is not only a critique of appeasement but also a call to courage. It is a timeless reminder that evil grows when it is tolerated.
Fighting corruption therefore demands that individuals and institutions stop feeding the crocodile, even when doing so appears to offer short-term protection.
This requires a collective commitment to resistance. Institutions must be strengthened to act independently and decisively.
Laws must be enforced without fear or favour. Whistle-blowers who expose corruption must be protected, not punished or humiliated.
Responsible institutions must investigate cases of corruption exposed by whistle-blowers without hiding under the guise of “we have not received formal communication”.
Citizens must be enabled to reject the normalisation of corruption and demand accountability at all levels. All bottlenecks in the way to Access to Information must be removed so as to promote accountability.
Above all, there must be a moral awakening, an understanding that corruption is not just a legal issue, but a profound ethical failure.
All in all, Malawi’s struggle has shifted from visible crocodiles in rivers and dams to invisible ones within systems. Corruption is the new predator. Appeasement only makes it stronger.
Those who feed the crocodile today may think that they are buying time, but in reality, they are hastening their own downfall. If corruption is the crocodile, then justice must be the courage to stop feeding it.
For only by starving the beast can Malawi ensure that it does not devour the nation whole.
About the author: Ntaukira is a freelance writer
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