Malawi is a sick, sleeping, and dead society. While neighbours Zambia were bringing former president Kenneth Kaunda to task, Malawi society allowed former president Kamuzu Banda to defile, rape and molest our human dignity. Kenneth Kaunda when questioned why Zambians were giving him tough time over transparency, accountability, and human dignity while Ngwazi Kamuzu Banda enjoyed tramping on Malawians? Kenneth Kaunda had this to say ” Kamuzu Banda is ruling dead people while I rule vigilante and enlightened living people.”
For 30 years we lived dead for we allowed Kamuzu Banda to kill and imprison many of our own fellow citizens. Instead of standing for our fellow citizens, we started selling each other in order to look important to the evil of Kamuzu Banda. We lost intelligent, brilliant, and foresighted leaders and patriots in the process.
Assisted by the international community the exiled leaders started the fire in Zambia, where the system of oppression was questioned and the nerve of survival donor Aid was frozen to when Kamuzu softened and realized the lion was slowly being overpowered.
We were rescued by the voice of God through the Roman Catholic Bishops, exiled groups and donors. Our society was awakened by these three groups.
When we woke up, we hatched a nation that will be free from oppression, free from abuse, free from corruption, free from state theft, free from politics of antagonism, free from chauvinism and shenanigan rule of iron fist.
Unfortunately, the drivers that were chosen were those that did not see this light and quest.
When we changed leadership, and political party, the society of Malawi went to sleep again. In our sleep, all freedoms we fought so hard to get assisted by three groups were captured and were held hostage. The same abuse, rape and molestation got revived.
The society of Malawi in deep sleep, slumbered. Today the society of Malawi is still sleeping if not completely dead.
Instruments and tools of good governance, transparency, and accountability at stake our society still slumbering.
The money stolen by Kamuzu Banda and his minions is ten times less compared to the trillions that supposedly to be democratic liberators have stolen in just 23 years of multiparty democracy.
The worst part is that “stolen money” has now become the supreme law of the land. Stolen money dictates life in Malawi.
The tools and instruments laid down, have since been silenced and out-shaped by the power of stolen money.
In Malawi today warrants of arrest issued by courts have no power, Malawi Police cannot execute their sacred work to arrest thieves in the government, court orders do not have power, rule of law has changed it’s now the rule of Peter Mutharika, the man who swore to uphold, protect and defend the supreme document of the country the “declaration of democracy” the Constitution.
In Malawi, a minister stopped to perform his/her duties by the courts can violate the order, the president can delegate a suspect that has been stopped by courts to represent Malawi internationally. Tens of warrant of arrests, are gathering dust in police and court houses without being executed, because the culprits are the president’s best men/women, friends and tribe.
Money is being stolen every minute in Malawi by ministers, the president and his ruling party, yet the society is deep snoring and sleeping.
Malawi is in an awkward position because no recognized political exiles are there to blow the trumpet, likewise the donors pulled off they have no umbilical cord to cut for Malawi to bleed and cause any alarm.
The Catholic Bishops cannot pastoralize any document because the driver of corruption at the helm is one of their member, it’s a conundrum for the Vatican branch in Malawi.
Politics has become the dirtiest practice in Malawi because party stalwarts can cause and spread violence against the opposition where blood will be spilled, police will do nothing because the violators are from the government.
The constitution, the courts, laws, are no longer functioning in Malawi.
In Malawi, what is functioning and feared is Peter Mutharika, the president.
If the laws of Malawi were functional, the Constitution breathing, courts alert, and police policing, our country could not have thieves as presidents or ministers, not to talk of members of parliament. Just because the above tools and instruments are greased by stolen money, the worst part, citizens having been sleeping, Malawi is a dead society. Dr. Kenneth Kaunda’s assertions have indeed come to pass.
Our appeal now is a quest to wake up the society from the sleep, to awaken the tools and instruments so that our nation can be alive and kicking.
Whatever law that gives the president, the minister or member of parliament immunity from prosecution, must be revisited, reviewed and amended. In the absence of impeachment, Peter Mutharika must be summoned to the court to explain why he defied court order against his minister George Chaponda. He must also be asked what impression is he giving to the society, by letting free his sacked minister George Chaponda from being arrested, after being found with hoards of money in his house, while financial intelligence unit, and global law against terror, that culminating the prohibition of money laundering laws are intact?
Peter Mutharika is needed and must appear in the dock of the courts and explain his stance to the nation of Malawi.
To justify Kenneth Kaunda’s remarks about Zambia, sometime back in the 1990s, late and former democratic president of Zambia Fredrick Chiluba was summoned to the courts of Zambia to answer questions as a witness against a case that involved one of his ministers Venon Mwaanga. President Chiluba stood in court and gave witness with an address of his residence being State house of Zambia in Lusaka.
Why shouldn’t Malawi do the same when a case of corruption, state theft, and money laundering, are sensitive issues across the globe?
To show that our society is awake, Peter Mutharika and George Chaponda must have their day in court as soon as tomorrow to show the nation that no one including the president, are above the law in Malawi.
This is our first step to show that our nation is awake, and we are a living society.
The tendency of hiding sensitive issues, has deprived our nation’s emotional intelligence, and made us all, a nation of fools.
So many secrets went with Kamuzu Banda, so many secrets are kept with Muluzi at BCA house, Bingu Wa Mutharika has his own, that Peter Mutharika is making sure that we must not know or investigate. Who knows why Joyce Banda is perching herself in exile for such long time? Today a visible criminal case involving Chaponda, is being pushed under the carpet in front of our eyes.
No! no! Malawi is an intelligent nation. Let me quote the speech of late minister of education Mr. Dick Matenje OLM, at a school conference in the 1980s in my constituency of Blantyre rural west; he said and I quote “Malawi is an intelligent country, let your the children, who are leaders of tomorrow, be intelligent too, do not let us as ministers, do wrong, and you fear to caution or blame us because we are wearing big trousers hanged in suspensions, you need to work hard at school,” end of quote.
May the soul of this son of the soil, rest in eternal peace. He is still talking from the grave that we must wake up and stop the ministers from stealing our taxes to fatten their bellies.
Let us wake up and prove former Zambian leader wrong. Let us display to the world, and ourselves that we are not a dead or sleeping society.
Yes! we may have slumbered but we are not dead neither are we sleeping, hence this article.
The views expressed in this column are not necessarily the views of the Publisher or Editor of The Maravi Post