Devastated. Demoralized. Destroyed. That’s what the President of Malawi Peter Mutharika is now. To say the truth, the president is so lost that there is no hope of him finding the right path.

President Peter Mutharika should have known that he was voted into office by the minority; and that he would not be president today were it not for the first-past-the-post. If this truth had dawned on his mind, Peter Mutharika would have known that he is unpopular among Malawians. He should have thus done everything in his power to win the souls of those Malawians that did not see the president in him to start seeing the president side of him.

I pity Peter Mutharika; instead of giving Malawians that did not vote for him confidence in his leadership style, he has only succeeded in antagonizing these Malawians even further. In the end, Peter has chosen his cronies over Malawi.

So Peter Mutharika is no longer Peter Mutharika. He is a caricature of himself. He is no longer himself because he has sacrificed that ever identified him as him for his cronies.

Today, what president Peter Mutharika does is not what he believes in or what pleases Malawi as a country but he is doubly willing to do what pleases his cronies. When he wants to take an action and his buddies complain “Oh no Sir, that might hurt me or honorable so-so” Mutharika reverses the action pronto.

I very much pity current president of Malawi, Peter Mutharika. He is so much lost into protecting his buddies whilst caring less about himself and the people on whose trust he governs the country. That is why he is ready not to suspend the Agriculture Minister Dr Goerge Chaponda maizegate. He is ready to be the bad man for Chaponda; after all he’s his closest and most trusted buddy!

I do really seriously pity Peter Mutharika. He’s just there: seated. His buddies—call them whatever suits them: ministers, deputy ministers, principal secretaries, directors, boards of parastatal organizations etc.—are buddies sneaking their dirty hands in government coffers but president Mutharika is just watching.

His buddies steal. He gets the bad name and does not care a second about it. He does not raise his finger against anyone let alone fire them but, quiet sadly, goes on a mad rampage defending them. This tendency gives momentum to the thinking that Mutharika might be an abetter and not a crusader of corruption.

I pity Peter Mutharika. He is so detached to the larger Malawi population and, at this rate, his chances of bouncing back in 2019 are becoming slimmer and slimmer by the second.

I pity the president of Malawi. Only if he would start listening to the voice of reason would he be able to save himself and serve Malawians better.

I very very much pity Mutharika. He is a president who is so withdrawn from his people. He is so distant. So closed. So impersonal. He is a president who is more well-known by the four walls of Sanjika/Kamuzu palace and his manipulative inner circle than by the Malawi public. Indeed, if I were to ask you who Peter Mutharika is your quickest answer would be “The President of Malawi” and you stop there. There’s just nothing much we Malawians know about him. In other words, Peter Mutharika is a hermit.

I pity Peter Mutharika. He is the president of Malawi, yes, but we Malawians do not really feel it that there is a president in Malawi the way we did with Kamuzu Banda with his autocracy; Bakili Muluzi with his jokes; Bingu wa Mutharika with his arrogance; and Joyce Banda with her trial-and-error leadership style.