“You must not fight
too often
with one enemy,
or you will teach him
all your art of war”
Napoleon Bonaparte
Can someone tell the DPP-administration that it is high time it started governing and stopped picking needless – if not nonsensical – fights? I mean, it is not like someone will wake these fellas up one day and tell them Maxon Mbendera was just tantalising them that they won May 20.
Look, I like Foreign Affairs Minister George Chaponda. He is quite a nice guy; affable, approachable and quite intelligent too.
But sometimes the Yale-trained lawyer needlessly sticks his shoe in his mouth. Remember the other year he made Malawi become the butt of jokes when he suggested that the ‘fouling air’ laws his government was formulating were meant to criminalise ‘farting in public’?
Wow! Because of the good lawyer all things Malawian became fodder for jokes across the globe for talk-show hosts and stand-up comics – of which his fantastically funny son, Daliso, is coincidentally part.
When he realised he had made a cartoon of himself, Chaponda tried to talk his Solicitor General into helping him salvage his soiled image. But the judicious Anthony Kamanga could have none of it. He respectfully retorted to his boss: “You fouled the air yourself, Sir, you clear it yourself too!”
So, good old George, egg all over his face, did the mea culpa all by himself and accepted that farting in public – embarrassing as it may be – is not exactly illegal even in a funny country like Malawi.
One would have thought that, after his embarrassing moment of infamy, Chaponda could have learnt to think before opening his mouth.
But hell, no!
Look, I can forgive Patricia Kaliati for accusing Joyce Banda of ‘stalking’ her successor, Peter Mutharika. I can I understand from whence Akweni is coming.
But not the Yale-trained top diplomat of the country.
For starters, Joyce Banda did not – could not – gate-crash the United Nations summit. She was invited to attend and speak at specific side events of the summit like the women leaders’ demonstration on climate change and the ‘A World at School’.
In fact she was not the only former leader; Gordon Brown and others were also there.
There may be several issues Joyce Banda owes the nation an explanation for, but certainly not her UN junket.
Look, if Chaponda and Kaliati are to be believed that the President was not aware of the former president’s engagements in New York, why did he have to hire a whole train-load of advisors for?
I mean, I have been privileged to attend a number of international events. Booklets containing schedules and speakers – including their profiles, are circulated months before.
Even if she wanted to sneak out to these conferences, Joyce Banda could not have pulled it off because her name was all over the conference booklets for crying out loud!
Or, perhaps, the plane-full of advisors and hangers-on Peter took to the Big Apple were only there to ogle – and smile themselves silly – at the Statue of Liberty?
By the way, even if we are to believe the Chaponda-Kaliati fantastical tales that Joyce Banda sneaked out, how did she found herself in New York? On foot?
As a former president she is not only entitled to a diplomatic passport but also access to the VVIP services at the airport.
Now, as our chief diplomat, Chaponda must know that the Airport Commandant cannot open the VVIP lounge without prior instructions.
Or is Chaponda conceding that the DPP government is so inept it does not know what is happening around it? Do we not have one Nicholas Dausi heading a band of sleuths whose job must be taking note of who is going where, doing what, why, meeting who and for what purpose?
Come to think of it, the brouhaha surrounding Joyce Banda’s junket to New York is exposing the DPP administration’s soft under-belly. Look, Chaponda is saying that if his incompetent government (do not blame the Muckraker for that adjective, blame Chaponda for a government that does not understand what is happening within itself must be truly incompetent) had known Joyce Banda would be addressing certain events, government would not have sent delegates to the same.
What balderdash! That was, in fact, the more reason government should have attended her events. I do not want to believe Chaponda, whom I respect so much, was part of the misguided people who mis-advised First Lady Gertrude Mutharika to give Joyce Banda’s first ladies’ event a ‘no-show’.
Angoni Getu should have risen above the local petty politics and be the first one to congratulate Ama and give her a bear hug after she made her keynote address. What an awesome picture it could have made!