By Saunders Jumah
Thinkers, members of Maenga and the entire nation are pondering and wondering how to choose a servant leader in Malawi taking in mind the past mistakes.
This dictum as it concludes will answer this noble question.
A person cannot decide by his/her own to preside as a president. His/her activities about the nation empowers citizens and a section of people to think of coaxing the person into public office of the president.
In 1950s this happened, activists and politicians used the same way by inviting Kamuzu Banda from London/Ghana. What Kamuzu Banda was doing about this nation out there made Malawians to call him for the public office.
In South Africa ANC invited Nelson Mandela because of his eloquence in helping poor citizens who had no legal defense to withstand archaic apartheid laws.
To choose a leader does not stop there, it must also look at the private and general life of the citizen involved to be chosen into the high office.
You need to be a person whose interests and activities liaise with nationhood. You do not choose a person who know nothing about his own country to be at the helm.
The presidency is an office it is not one man or one woman, its a list. The person to be the president must be intelligent to choose a brilliant and active team. The presidency must comprise with down to earth men and women who know to start a thing and finish.
Above all else the president must be a person whose feet can fit all sizes of shoes being worn by all citizens in the country.
How do one realise and know the sizes of all citizens?
The president must not be the rich person to distribute money to all citizens because money make a person greedy.
The person to be the president must be a genius who know and realize that among the five senses of humanity there is need to devise the sixth sense.
The sixth sense teaches that a leader must be able to touch all citizens of the country be able to speak and be spoken to by all citizens.
This point alone shows money is to small to reach out.
This is where the person seeks the guidance of the set rules on national development strategy made not by him but the chosen or apoointed National Planning Commission. A president must always implement what he/she does not favour in so doing he will reach out to all.
In looking at all these the person must make sure to see that road networks are everywhere, access to facilities that support life must be lively available particularly in the rural and impassable marginalized areas of a nation.
This induces rural population to develop the sixth sense for themselves and find means of survival hence development reaching out to all.
A person who amass and collects cash into his pocket is and cannot be a good president.
Money in the pocket gathers lust in the hearts of people even if they are good hearted. To avoid this the person who make a good president must avoid and shy to have cash in his pocket or bank account. The person must make sure any little the nation has must be like a blanket that will cover the entire body.
How among citizens can we choose a leader must depend on what they stand for even before they join politics. We need to know what citizens do in their private lives.
Each of us in our private lives do we care about Malawi or we start to think of Malawi when we are invited to join parties or because our relatives, brothers or fathers are politicians.
If you have not played an organ like a guitar, a drum, piano or banjo you cannot be a musician.
For you to serve as a leader of a nation you must be involved in your private life with your personal resources to fight for the lives and nation called Malawi.
Credit must go to Malawi founding president his involvement about the struggle for African independence with fellows Mzee Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, Padmore and others paid when he came he laid a foundation that was meant to touch souls, MDC, PTC, Press group, more especially the discipline the nation had.
The problem he made is that he didn’t choose a competitive team and he was allergic to criticism. Had he chose critical team around him and tolerated criticism our nation could be a paradise today.
Hand clappers and greed senses that were hungry for power destroyed a visionary in Kamuzu Banda. We must learn a lesson that being allergic to fear and criticism you become a murderer.
Many of us who are outside and those inside toil to survive and care less of the plight of the nation and its citizens, we may not make good leaders if we are invited by friends, colleagues or brothers.
But those of us who are toiling for our survival in and outside Malawi who spend the little we get to contribute, fight and strive for a better Malawi are the people Malawi must look up for better leaders of the future.
We do not mind where we are but our nation is in our hearts and we sacrifice without fear of deaths, kidnapping, abduction or assassination.
Those are men and women to be chosen because when they get in they will make sure the burning desire that pushed them to talk and fight for Malawi in their comfort zones will burn hard when they sit at state house, house of parliament or council offices.
There are men and women across the world who are having sleepless nights because of the state of affairs in Malawi they spend their last to make sure Malawi is liberated from the hands of thieves and corrupt people.
If you look around you will see them, this is a revolution everywhere the world is looking for patriots and radical people to revolutionize our way of life.
We must confess and accept the world as we know it has been discovered but only 10%.
We have a mammoth task to explore the remaining 90% hence the need for revolutionary, radical, intelligent, African educationists not western educated who spend their time playing golf, in bars drinking Kalua, yet our stones are being crushed with hands. Wheel barrows are being imported, importing toothpicks.
Part of this dictum is answering the debate Maenga had this morning. The large part is enlightening citizens across the political spectrum to think before they choose their political office bearers as party conventions looms.
***The views expressed in this article are not necessarily the views of the Publisher or the Editor of Maravi Post
