There is nothing more mortifying than seeing (or hearing) a country’s First Citizen lying through his or her teeth to defend the indefensible!—unbridled abuse of office and lack of accountability and transparency. On a previous NY UNGA trip, the First Citizen told the nation he put up in a $400 room (albeit complete with kitchen facilities!) which on the face of it is a lie.
He now tells the nation his travel-cavalcade of a hundred-plus was actually the smallest, never mind this was from a country the First Citizen conveniently describes as ‘broke’ when asked to consider interests that have nothing to do with him.
Not to be comical or disparaging,, I have seen ‘video-evidence’ that supports the assertion that the larger-than-life travel party was ‘hauled and ferried’ to the NY UNGA to ‘applaud’ the First Citizen wherever and whenever he spoke (that speaks volumes about the First Citizens’ speech-delivery prowess!).
Why did the First Citizen not tell the nation when he was seeking the high office what he is now telling the nation, that he was already a dollar-millionaire, not very keen on globe-trotting because he already knows the world and not interested in the pittances may we give him for allowances? Is it because he feared that would alienate potential voters or it is because he knew that was the furthest thing from the truth?
It is a lie to tell Malawians that a serious investor would consider (as a preferable, serious destination for his capital) Malawi over another country on account of our having established community colleges or ‘village’ polytechnics across the length and breadth of the country.
The truth of the matter is, Malawi is more likely to be considered as a serious destination for serious capital investment if our tertiary education (especially ICT and technical education) were up-to-scratch (in addition to other critical considerations) which should prod us into re-thinking our decision to dis-invest in or re-direct resources meant for tertiary education which has left our tertiary-education institutions churning out more industry ‘unemployables’.
One thing we can be certain about this First Citizen is that because of his inherent lack of self-esteem and high tolerance for mediocrity, he will give the country programmes that breed debilitating dependency and work against the biblical ethos of self-reliance, hard-work and an honest ‘pay’ key to any personal up-liftment and ultimately the up-liftment of the entire nation: the freebies he has lined up for the country (they are also the ‘politically correct and easy’ thing(s) to do) if as a country we cannot garner enough unity of purpose and courage to rebuff the First Citizen’s mediocrity!
I do not see anything in President APM’s current thinking that can catalyze and re-awaken the Malawian ethos of hard-work and honest ‘pay’, resourcefulness and vision that transformed a pre-independence primitive economy into a post-independence ‘mini-tiger’ economy that ‘delivered rapid and broad-based growth’ nor do I see the ‘dreaming-in-colour’ confidence of his late brother save the lies, mediocrity and doom-and-gloom of the not-too-distant past.
Contribution by: Chisala, Maxwell L.
