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Why MCP’s mercenaries MUST face terrorism charges
Photo: Times
I have watched closely the charges brought forward against the alleged mercenaries that terrorised people holding dissenting views during the administration of Lazarus Chakwera and his Malawi Congress Party (MCP). One charge is still missing.
I have been waiting, yet I have not seen the terrorism charges being advanced. Perhaps there are fears over how the other flank would react. It is in my strongest belief that they must be charged with acts of terrorism, for that is precisely what they committed. One may ask what Malawian law says on terror. Let me pause this question for a moment and simply show how their acts constitute terror using my own experience.
There are several other examples. From several other people.
I made a decision when I first heard that a wing of MCP youth were being trained at a Malawi Police college that I would not visit Malawi unless the previous government was removed by the ballot from power. Following the onslaught on innocent lives that mercenaries associated with Malawi Congress Party carried out, my decision was cemented. This was the second time I was deeply afraid to even consider visiting the place I call home while seated somewhere ‘by the rivers of Babylon’. Even my plan to head to Zambia and meet some colleagues from Malawi for the Anti-Imperial forum I was co-organising was abandoned. ‘Why?’, you may ask.
Photo by Jacob Nankhonya/The Nation We all know how people lost their lives through letter bombs in neighbouring countries during MCP’s first tyrannical rule. Do you remember Attati Mpakati. I was scared. All plans were shelved for my forum was not put on hold but purged!
Then the Mbowe Filling Station incident happened. But the terror attacks at Parliament targeted at the opposition were the final nail on the coffin. It was unprecedented except during the first tyrannical regime of MCP and the party’s life president, H Kamuzu Banda. So these acts evolved what we have been reading in And Crocodiles Are Hungry at Night or Political Prisoner 3/75.
If such an act of terror could be unleashed upon lawmakers within the vicinity of armed police forces, ‘Who am I? What of my family?’ I asked. I read that Sylvester Namiwa was even attacked in full view of the Malawi Army. Those officers must face the arm of military law.
On my part, a hard decision had to be made, and I reminded myself why I left the country in January 2022. It was not for green pasture. Getting that job was by all means, secondary! I kept reminding my family members and friends: do you see the animosity in the eyes of [name redacted] when he talks about the opposition and anyone holding dissenting views. A friend who had returned home from the United Kingdom survived the filling station onslaught and came back to the United Kingdom in a state of mental terror. Several others who could sought asylum in different parts of Malawi on political grounds. While I did not do so because it was not the path I ever planned, it demonstrates how terrorised we (those of us associated with the opposition) were.
So when all charges are eventually brought against these thugs, my plea to the Attorney General and the Director of Public Prosecutions is this: bring terror charges against these individuals and their masters. These acts should never be allowed to recur. Not in a democratic state like Malawi. When former president Joyce Banda posted about the fate of Saulos K Chilima, JB’s post revealed the tyrannical instincts of those who viewed dissenters as threats in the previous administration.
Several others whose names we may never know died. Others will live with disabilities forever from machetes and zibonga.
It is not only the use of explosives or firearms that falls within the scope of the United Nations counterterrorism conventions as localised under the Financial Crimes Act 2(1). Anyone who financed these operations must be held accountable under sections 43 and 44 of the same Act. This must never be allowed to happen again in Malawi.
It is for this very reason that I plead to have terror charges brought against this mercenaries.
I should state that these terrorist groups did not emerge in isolation. They operated within an atmosphere that was made possible by a tyrannical administration and her agents.
That Chakwera displayed typical signs of tyranny is clear if we evoke Aristotle’s modus operandi for tyrants. Here is an example. The Director of the Anti Corruption Bureau, Martha Chizuma, was hounded like a criminal in the thicket of one December night’s darkness, only allowed to put on a pair of running tracksuit. Her only crime was criticising the President for enabling and protecting corruption through silence, inaction, or direct obstruction of the Bureau’s work. She shared her criticism with someone she considered a friend.
One can argue that this is not tyrannical.
“A tyrant should also endeavour to know what each of his subjects says or does, and should employ spies, like the female detectives at Syracuse, and the eavesdroppers whom Hiero was in the habit of sending to any place of resort or meeting. For the fear of informers prevents people from speaking their minds, and if they do, they are more easily found out” thus says Aristotle.
So why did Chakwera rely on Kayuni, the Director of Public Prosecutions, as his dog to go after Chizuma during moments of political tension. On this, Aristotle advises tyrants to only “distribute honour himself, but punishment should be inflicted by officers and courts of law” to evoke a sense of rule of law. Thus, Chizuma’s arrest was an unprecedented indictment of the country’s governance in a typical tyrannical fashion.
Kayuni’s suspension was all theatrical, not real. For what happened next revealed the game. What happened next. Are you a stranger in Jerusalem? Was he not honoured by Chakwera by being appointed Secretary to the Ministry of Homeland, where the Malawi Police that arrested Chizuma sits, before being appointed a High Court judge (not sure he accepted this role)?
Examples that hints on tyrannical undertakings are countless. I will not talk about Chakwera’s defence when he was called out by the BBC for hiring his daughter or son in law to accompany him to a virtual conference in the United Kingdom. Just watch that BBC clip again. Tyrants!!
As for his religious belief, Aristotle captures it even more vividly: “A tyrant should appear to be particularly earnest in the service of the gods; for if men think that a ruler is religious and reverent, they are less afraid of suffering injustice at his hands, and are less disposed to conspire against him, believing that he has the gods fighting on his side”. There is a reason he travelled across the country attending services and issuing public sermons, whether on the drought or any crisis requiring decisive action. He invoked God in place of governance. Chakwera followed to the letter Aristotle’s teachings on how to be tyrant.
Such tyrannical dispassion made it possible for acts of terror by armed wings or hired mercenaries to be carried out without fear of the law. Whether the ones arrested were hired mercenaries or part of the armed wing is yet to be established. But what is evident, however, is that their acts tick several boxes on acts of terror in our laws, and the UN’s convention on this topic.
It is against this background that I believe charges relating to terrorism must be prepared and brought against them. Let the law they trampled upon fall on them with the weight of a ton of brick to serve as a lesson that no act of terrorism must ever be permitted within Malawi.
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Ngulu Ya Nawambe Should Be a University, Not a Tourist Trap
The announcement by National Bank of Malawi that it was turning the Kasungu residence of Malawi’s bloodthirsty dictator, Kamuzu Banda, into a tourist hub was welcomed by many as, ironically, a sign of transformative development. My view on Ngulu Ya Nawambe is simple. It should never have been reduced to a tourist gimmick.
Given its deep historical significance, turning it into a site for sightseeing and leisure is a profound mistake. It trivialises the pain associated with its past and undermines the opportunity to repurpose that memory into something transformative.
Ngulu Ya Nawambe should have been turned into a university. Kasungu University. In the era of generative artificial intelligence, machine learning, and large-scale data science, it could have served as a hub for innovation and critical scholarship. Yes, we have the Malawi University of Science and Technology which is now ranked by Times Higher Education as the country’s leading university for research and scholarship. But Malawi needs more than one elite institution. A second national science-focused university in a region like Kasungu would spread opportunity and help unlock regional development.
Turning such a site into a tourist hub is not just a missed opportunity. It is a failure of postcolonial imagination. That is, until one realises who is behind this move. We are witnessing the old elite machinery, now propped up by corporate banking institutions, repackage memory into yet another capitalist project under the false promise of development.
Frantz Fanon and Walter Rodney warned us about precisely this pattern. Tourism, they argued, is one of the most meaningless and alienating industries in the postcolony. In the Malawian context, it is perhaps only rivalled by tobacco and inevitably by corruption. It does not uplift. It exploits. It sells nostalgia to the privileged while alienating the poor who live within its shadow. Remember the gated resorts along Lake of Malawi? When you visit the any game reserve, have you ever seen an ordinary folk there. Ever wondered why? Class reinforcement!
Fanon was direct in his assessment: “The national bourgeoisie organises centres of rest and relaxation and pleasure resorts to meet the wishes of the Western bourgeoisie. Such activity is given the name of tourism, and for the occasion will be built up as a national industry…”
Rodney, extending Fanon’s argument, adds: “It is a new way of confirming the dependence and subjugation of Third World economies being transformed into cesspools, which is what the tourism economy is all about.”
Tourism is not neutral. It erodes the revolutionary and transformative potential of a people. In Malawi, it has become the playground of the petty bourgeoisie who, as Fanon and Rodney noted, aspire to mirror their metropolitan counterparts. These are projects that do not speak to the needs or dreams of the rural majority.
Hardly anyone from Kadundu or even from the wider Kasungu district will ever step foot into the revamped Ngulu Ya Nawambe if it is swallowed by the tourism sector. As a university, however, that space could have offered educational access to hundreds if not thousands of Malawians. It could have redefined the country’s intellectual and technological trajectory.
Instead, National Bank and others have positioned themselves as hosts not to the Malawian public but to what Rodney once called their Western opposite numbers. They are not investing in Malawi’s future. They are reinforcing class ties between local elites and foreign capital.
This is not development. It is displacement disguised in the language of progress. In fact, it may well become a conduit for money laundering given the long trail of scandals involving financial institutions in Malawi. Cashgate. This gate. That gate. You name it. Our Banks are allover these scandals.
Ngulu Ya Nawambe deserves better. Reverse the decision. Reimagine that space not as a monument to elite leisure but as a place of learning, innovation, and national renewal. Let it belong to all of Malawi. Not just those who have feasted on public resources in the name of progress. Kasungu University or Ngulu Ya Nawambe University!
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Carlsberg, neo-Colonialism, and the illusion of development
Carlsberg first built its beer plant outside Denmark right here in Malawi. That was back in 1968. Just four years after independence. How ironic!
This is a piece of history many of us beer guzzlers in the country are quite proud of. Carlsberg Green remains a classic, unmatched in its legacy. Perhaps only Carlsberg Special rivals it, but that’s a debate for another day. Yet as we raise our bottles, ice cold or straight from counter (after all this is June and where is the electricity to keep the fridge running), the revolutionary scholar Walter Rodney asks us to pause; and reflect.
Rodney, in one of his Decolonial Marxism essays, ponders: “Building a beer factory is considered as the first step towards industrialisation. Quite apart from the fact that I don’t know of beer as having developed any nation, one has to realise the fallacy on which the claims are based. The underlying notion is that industrialisation per se is the answer to underdevelopment. Therefore, the logic of that argument is that if the country ceases to import beer and instead develops an import substitute by making the beer locally, then a step has been made in the direction of development.”
Rodney’s insight forces us to reconsider the meaning of development and to interrogate the legacy of European influence in post-independence Africa. For those who assume Denmark had no role in colonisation or neocolonialism on the continent, Rodney helps illuminate how imperialist relations were not always direct but were certainly deliberate (with both solid and dotted lines). The imperialists and (neo) colonizers are well captured by this idiom: A kwawo/pawo ndi mizu ya Kachere!
Europe and (let me refrain from naming a particular imperial country I am visiting for a conference this summer, especially after seeing what they’ve done to this other pan-Africanist and anti-imperial politician also known as Juju) worked collectively to obstruct the full realisation of African sovereigns, and most importantly, industrial and human development. The fact remains, neocolonialism is as violent today as slavery and colonialism was, yes! This explains why even today we are told not to sing our songs of freedom by countries that vote for racist and rapists into power in order to retain their imperial stance. This is why the imperial disregard our judiciary (such as the Supreme Courts) as long as such rulings question their imperial quo. Need I say more?
For Juju, Evison Matafale’s Kuimba 1 reminds us that freedom is not always welcomed by those who benefit from our silence. But we will continue to sing our songs of freedom even if it is in whispers.
Back to Carlsberg Green! So why did Kamuzu allow Carlsberg to build that plant? The plant signifies the formal announcement of the neo-colonial project. With Kamuzu Banda spearheading it. For him, independence did not mean the transformation of Malawi. It meant a continuation of imperial control. That is why he never wanted “Mitu bi” at his Eton College inspired academy. Here, Rodney evokes Amílcar Cabral, who argues that:
“Independence is not just a simple matter of expelling the [white settlers], of having a flag and a national anthem.”
In the same vein, Matafale sings: “Malawi, ufulu si nsima ai” while declaring that his fire is for “freedom for everyone, everywhere” in Kuimba 1 and its sequel, Kuimba 2, respectively.
Does this explains why Kamuzu ensured, just as Rodney notes of agriculture in slavery and colonial days that “it never evolved beyond backward agriculture, so industrialisation was out of the question” for the ordinary people, the proletariat. The Chuma chili mu nthaka was never aimed at transforming the country into an an innovative or industrial arena but continued subjugation of the ordinary folks just like those who masterminded the bloodbath in Nkhatabay had before Kamuzu.
Next month, Malawi turns 61. While our rare earths power electric vehicles in the United Kingdom and Canada and Our uranium powers nuclear submarines and power plants in the UK, France, and Australia, many of us here at home go without electricity for more than six hours a day.
In few days time, we must ask ourselves as we have openly been doing the past 30 years: Is this, what we are living, Independence?
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Is the African Union Fit for Purpose?
The African Union (AU) has become an empty shell. It is a political body in name, but not in action. It no longer reflects the radical dreams of the Pan-Africanist revolutionaries who envisioned a united, self-determined Africa. Instead of leading the continent into a new era of liberation, development and unity, the AU has become a polite spectator to the very issues it was formed to confront.
It has failed us. And if it cannot change, it must be disbanded.
Let us be clear. The AU, or its predecessor, the Organisation of African Union (OAU), was never created to be a bureaucratic club. It was founded to be the engine of African liberation and development; and as an institution built upon the visions of Queen Nzinga, Thomas Sankara, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Frantz Fanon and Amílcar Cabral. And, of course, Walter Rodney, whose revolutionary scholarship must be taught across Africa, from primary school to university. These figures did not fight for an Africa that would beg at the doors of global powers or remain dependent on foreign aid for its survival.
Yet, the AU today is more symbolic than strategic. It lacks the political will, urgency and coordination needed to meet even its own stated objectives. Let’s consider just the following three objectives, without going into further details, to expose how lacking this continental body is:
- To establish the necessary conditions which enable the continent to play its rightful role in the global economy and in international negotiations.
- To promote sustainable development at the economic, social and cultural levels as well as the integration of African economies.
- To promote and defend African common positions on issues of interest to the continent and its peoples.
On all fronts, the AU is failing.
Recent developments have exposed this failure with brutal clarity. When the United States, under Donald Trump’s second term, announced new policies that directly affected African interests, what did the AU do? Absolutely nothing of substance.
Firstly, the US revised its stance on USAID and related funds, suspending them following revelations of mismanagement. While some misuse is undeniable, these funds were, in many cases, saving lives through public health interventions. Millions were left vulnerable overnight. But the AU did not call an emergency summit, did not offer a continental strategy, did not demand a serious conversation about how we build independent and resilient health systems. Yes, we have our Africa CDC which is doing extremely well but nothing was publicly shared with the people to share our vision post USAID.
Instead of confronting this challenge head-on, the AU chose silence. And we all know that silence is complicity.
Secondly, the US, again, has introduced tariffs that have affected nearly every country globally, including my own, Malawi. There is no denying that these tariffs have the potential of decimating economies. Where is the AU’s collective economic strategy? Where is our response? The European Union held consultations and moved swiftly to develop its countermeasures. China and some of Southeast Asian countries are also realigning their economic strategies. Meanwhile, the AU slumbers. If this is how we face global economic shifts, then what is the point of the Union?
Lastly, have you heard a single decisive response from the AU regarding the travel restrictions imposed on over half the continent’s countries? The AU has undoubtedly taken “silence is golden” as its holy writ.
These recent developments that have been rolled out like the way African politicians love rolling the red carpet and those big sofa chair of our old folks, we must ask the hard questions:
What leverage do we really have as a continent if we are not united in purpose or action? Why are we still dependent on powers thousands of miles away for our health systems, food security and technological development? Why are we still exporting raw materials only to import finished goods at inflated prices?
Africa is not poor. Everyone knows. We are plundered.
Yet we allow NGOs to operate as sovereign entities with diplomatic immunity, and foreign capitalists to loot our land, while millions of our people live without access to the most basic services. The AU has not even tried to coordinate a pan-African plan of action to this continued exploitation or the recent development. It has not built the kind of strategic alliances, infrastructure or consciousness that our times demand.
We cannot keep behaving as though the Berlin Conference just ended yesterday.
We need boldness. We need a new model. If the AU cannot become the radical, people-centred, Pan-African body it was meant to be, then we must disband it and reimagine the future. May be we will let the Alliance of Sahel or a new generation of regional and continental alliances lead where the AU is evidently failing.
We must take charge. Because no one will save Africa for us. Unfortunately, the African Union is joyriding us into the storm with a broken compass. As I recently discussed with two colleagues from Guinea-Bissau and South Africa, if we don’t act now, the louts will keep coming here and declaring: “We came, we saw, he died” while our continental bloc remains ever-present in meetings, yet deep in slumber. Present, but absent in meaning.
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Patriarchy Strikes Back on X: Women’s Structural Struggle Against Patriarchy in Malawi
Nearly said it’s shocking to see what some men on X Malawi (or should I say Twitter Malawi) have recently posted against women; but nah, I know better. It isn’t shocking. Evidence shows that Malawi is predominantly patriarchal. Even societies that were originally matrilineal across the country have been nearly devoured by patriarchy.
I almost made excuses that perhaps these men haven’t experienced love from… but then I remembered how I have argued against similar justifications for racism and xenophobia in the UK or the US when some sections wanted to put Putin or Russia as a scapegoat for the Brexit vote, UKIP or Nigel Farage and Reform’s rising popularity, or both of Trump’s elections. Remember the Russian-bots argument on Brexit or Trump’s first election; being used as reasons for the rise in racism and xenophobia, as though these societies were not already racist and xenophobic.
The truth is, these societies have always been structured this way; social media has merely amplified their prejudices or social media has made us more aware of these issues; whether it be police brutality, the racial profiling of Black people through stop and search, and the blatant hatred people like Elon Musk or Andrew Tate spew against a race or gender.
In other words, there is no excuse for the misogyny and sexism that I witnessed on X Malawi beyond the fact that these men are misogynistic and sexist and have a particular disdain for women. So, my excuse is partly evidence that as a man I can easily defend and find an excuse for my gender at the expense of the pain women are experiencing from fellow men in Malawi.
So no, I am not surprised by the hate being spewed on Twitter.
How do we address this?
Maybe we men need to educate ourselves. And by education, I don’t mean getting a degree; 10 to 15 years ago, my own comments would not have been much different; yet I already had my first paper by March 2009. This is why some men on Twitter can claim to be Marxist, Fanonian, or followers of Walter Rodney, Patrice Lumumba, and Thomas Sankara while still spewing hatred against women. That is hypocrisy to me or not really understanding the philosophy they claim to subscribe to. Just as you cannot fight racism or colonialism, past or present, while being a staunch proponent of capitalism. You just can’t! The exploitation is structurally entrenched.
Again, this is also why I stopped myself from saying that these men act out of pain because they have not received love from… I have seen racists who claim to have Black friends to validate their non-racist stance. I have seen xenophobes who marry foreigners and use that as validation of their claim that they are not xenophobic. I have seen people who marry Black partners or individuals from other racialised communities just to claim they are not racist. This kind of reasoning only individualises the issue and turns, in this context, sexism into a matter of personal failure rather than a structural and systemic problem that is widely trenched within Malawian society. But sexism in Malawi is not just an individual problem; it is a structural and systemic one.
So no, I am not surprised by the hate being spewed on Twitter. And again, how do we address this hatred and abusive and exploitative behaviour towards women? The same way we intend to fight racism and xenophobia in South Africa; the same way we are fighting against tribalism in Malawi; the same way we have been fighting against neocolonialism and capitalism in Africa; the same way we push for the expansion of AES across the continent; the same way we fight against every form of structural inequality. Because this hatred being expressed on Twitter is not just an issue of men being unkind – it is a class struggle, and “every class struggle is a political [and power] struggle”.
To the women who are individually on the receiving end of this, I wish I could say that these men do not represent me or speak on my behalf the way it is demanded of the Muslim community… but that would undermine the pain my gender is subjugating you to. Instead, I refuse to distance myself from the harm my gender is inflicting on you. I acknowledge it and stand in solidarity with your resistance.
The hate you are receiving is patriarchy, as a structural empire, in full force fighting back after noting your ability to exercise agency and make your own choices instead of bending over to the ego at the core of the empire.
The rebellion must live on!
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Mutharika Poised for a Landslide Victory in the 2025 Malawi Presidential Elections
Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera is on course for a landslide defeat in the 2025 Presidential elections, according to recent opinion polls. In one poll conducted by Malawi24, an online news publication, Chakwera secured only about 4,000 votes out of nearly 40,000 participants, which accounts for around 10% of the total responses. In contrast, rookie UTM presidential aspirant Dalitso Kabambe surpassed Chakwera to claim second place with almost 9,000 votes. The most surprising result, however, was former president Peter Mutharika, who garnered nearly 24,000 votes.
Despite these findings, the polls have been criticised by some, particularly die-hard supporters of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP).
A common argument often parroted by this group is that people on social media don’t vote, or that elections are not won on social media. An example often cited is Vice President Saulos Chilima, who, according to some, was popular and led almost all social media/online polls leading up to the 2019 presidential elections, only to come third in the actual results.
However, both you and I are on social media, and if you’re on social media and plan to vote, then the argument that people on social media don’t vote is flawed. I have been using social media for more than 20 years, from the days of Facebook and Blogspot to this AI generation. I have commented on politics and voted in most elections since 2004 since becoming an eligible voter. But, unlike in the past, I will be on social media and will likely not vote this year. Not because I want to, but because MEC won’t allow me to, as I am outside the country. The system, in this context, is rigged against me.
As such, there are some who participated in the poll who are likely not to vote. But I can only guess that this fraction is too small. There are some on social media, just like me, who won’t vote. But, just like me, there are also some who didn’t take part in this opinion poll who will vote. This opinion poll, therefore, involved and captured only a fraction of those who will vote.
What makes this opinion poll unique, however, is that it is the first time in Malawi an opinion poll has generated nearly 40,000 responses, with each person casting one vote.
It should be noted, however, that the participation wasn’t scientific and did not follow the statistical rigour that other opinion polls subscribe to. However, one could also argue that in all previous opinion polls leading up to the 2019 and 2020 presidential elections, President Peter Mutharika was always coming a distant third; except for those pseudo-opinion polls devised and conducted by some DPP operatives as we are currently seeing with MCP.
In the 2019 Afrobarometer survey, Mutharika lost, and Chakwera won. This year, Chakwera has lost. Of course, their sample sizes were smaller, but unlike the Malawi24 opinion poll, Afrobarometer’s poll was grounded in scientific principles and methodological approaches. To make it even more unique, the Malawi24 and Afrobarometer opinion polls could be seen as complementary, as their results reflect each other. Chakwera has lost grip of the country. Most Malawians want him out of office. Unless a genie grants him a miraculous wish, there is no way he will survive 2025, and his downfall, according to these two opinion polls, will come with a landslide. Peter Mutharika may not even need an alliance with, say, UTM or UDF. This would undermine Kabambe’s strategy if that is the reason he gambled on leaving DPP for UTM.
However, Mutharika could still lose this election if he or the DPP make the same gamble as they did in 2019 or 2020. In 2019, the DPP made the mistake of picking someone extremely unpopular within party ranks as a number 2: Overton Chimulirenji. Chakwera’s politics and those of our current Finance Minister remind me of Mr. Chimung’angang’a (as my sister put it, with two crying emojis). No wonder the country’s economy is in such a big mess. Guesswork is leading Malawi.
The second unpopular gamble the DPP made in 2020 was forming an alliance with UDF and Atupele Muluzi. DPP’s Vice President for the East, Bright Msaka, had already decimated Atupele Muluzi, even in his own constituency, Kapoloma, where the young Muluzi lost considerably. Who, in their right mind, would pick someone they’ve already beaten in an alliance? Just because it was feasible to form an alliance doesn’t mean the DPP needed to choose Muluzi as a running mate. I would have picked Msaka instead and promise Muluzi a ministerial role for his support.
Mutharika faces a similar challenge. Word on the street is that he may consider Mrs. Mary Chilima as his running mate. This makes political sense, given her popularity. She is well-educated, with a PhD from a reputable university. Is she a proven leader? That remains unclear. However, when you consider the gender, age, and tribal politics that have shaped Malawi since 1964, she ticks all the boxes. She is from the North, female, and younger than the other potential candidates. However, it’s important to note that the DPP was betrayed by her husband (she is not her husband, so we must judge her as an individual), just as Joyce Banda has been criticised (Malawians often tend to over-judge women). Additionally, UTM is in disarray, so while her inclusion might not secure all UTM votes, she would undoubtedly garner significant support. She is more popular and would likely bring in more votes than, for example, Triephonia Mpinganjira – another Chimulirenji- has recently come under heavy scrutiny. Also, her husband, Thom Mpinganjira, hails from Thyolo and has long been considered an associate of the DPP, despite admitting to financing Chakwera’s rise to the presidency. Therefore, Mary Chilima stands out more than Triephonia.
There are also some young, charismatic figures within the DPP, such as the fearless Ben Phiri, who continues to prove himself in Parliament with each sitting. However, his home of origin may limit his chances now for the running mate role. But at least DPP is sure as hell in good hands.
What I’m saying is that Mutharika and the party need to be strategic. They must choose a running mate who won’t undermine the party’s chances of victory; someone who will inspire hope that, should anything happen to Mutharika (God forbid, and it pains me to even write this, as I sound like Liabunya), Malawi will still be in good hands, without repeating the mistakes made by JB, Chilumpha, and Muluzi in their second terms by abandoning their parties. This task seems nearly impossible, but with the right team; or guidance, not opportunists – it is possible to find a suitable candidate. Malawi is on the brink of ruin, and as it stands, President Peter Mutharika and the DPP are what Malawians need to salvage what’s left of this sinking ship.
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The Great Deception: Chakwera The Liar
Mr Lazarus Chakwera is everything but a leader. He is toothless, indecisive, and, on top of that, a liar. Worse still, he has appointed individuals with fake qualifications from diploma mills – Hi MERA! Now, everything is falling apart. Are you really surprised that the centre of his web of lies can no longer hold?
This week, Chakwera’s deception was laid bare during his State of the Nation Address (SONA) – or rather, his State of the Nation Lies (SNL), a full-blown comedy act.
His SNL is not the first time he has lied.
He lied before becoming president, he continues to lie as president, and he is even lying on his campaign trail. Ironically, he presents himself as a born-again Christian.
That is also the calibre of his cronies masquerading as a team – everyone he has appointed and those who support him. Not a single one is credible enough to be trusted beyond the aesthetics and optics. Birds of a feather!
Have you forgotten? Since June 2020, not a single month has passed without a scathing scandal involving one of them. Together, Chakwera and his inner circle have left Malawi in tatters.
Under Chakwera and his cronies, along with his thieving legion, the economy has gone to the dogs, and Malawi is in complete ruins.
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You Can’t Be a Pan-Africanist While Upholding Colonial Anti-Gay Laws
Before engaging in a debate with any person, I typically review their account to better understand their perspective or ideological stance. Now, here is my take, inspired by a comment made to criticise someone else here on the basis of their presumed sexuality – you know, just as men often resort to calling a woman they’re arguing with hule, it seems to be a common trend to label people as gay or refer to non-binary sexualities to shut down the debate. Fascinating, isn’t it?
To begin with, it must be noted that colonial powers introduced anti-gay laws in the mid-1800s during their rule in colonial territories. This implies that the colonisers had observed widespread instances of same-sex relationships among the natives and sought to suppress them. Speaking of Malawi under British colonial administration, such relationships clearly conflicted with the British colonisers’ religious norms, which, as we know, were intertwined with their Christian beliefs and notions of “natural” order.
A relevant point here is that laws are not created in a vacuum. They are introduced in response to practices deemed significant enough to threaten or contradict the established order. For example, during his presidency, Bingu wa Mutharika (who I consider one of the greatest leaders Malawi has ever had) introduced laws to suppress demonstrations when his popularity declined, with protests erupting across every corner of the country. To instil fear, he even implemented the infamous “shoot-to-kill” policy.
Similarly, colonisers banned activities like drinking liquor on weekdays to ensure natives remained productive in colonial estates. Once again, laws target behaviours that are occurring widely enough to be perceived as a challenge to authority or established structures. The same can be said for laws on witchcraft. This brings me back to my main argument.
If we accept this premise, it follows that anti-gay laws, like other colonial laws which were designed to protect and align with the colonial administrative powers and beliefs, are therefore archaic and deeply rooted in the colonisation of Malawi and other African societies – emerging from colonial and slavers conservative religious movements that shaped their colonial and imperial movement . As I argue in my forthcoming paper, these colonial laws are not indigenous to African societies such as Malawi with its diverse cultural make up from the word go – even before David Livingstone (ironically, a Christian missionary serving the British colonial interests) paved way for the colonisation of Malawi and other countries within the region – Ohhh Dr Livingstone I presume.
Building on this, one can argue that it is fundamentally contradictory to claim to be a pan-Africanist while simultaneously upholding colonial laws and beliefs. These ideologies are built on binary, exclusionary worldviews: white is superior, male is superior, women exist to serve men, and the world is strictly divided into binaries; and thus, the only accepted sex is that of the binary genders.
To genuinely embrace pan-Africanism is to reject imperialist legacies that sought to erase or suppress African cultural practices. So, who are you? A pan-Africanist committed to decolonising African identities and systems, or a proponent of colonial ideologies? You cannot truly be both!
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Tinpot Biden Never Wanted to Quit
I have seen a couple of African news outlets and social media gurus elevating President Joe Biden’s withdrawal and presenting it as exemplary for some leaders in African countries to emulate.
The fact of the matter is that Biden did not withdraw voluntarily. He was forced to call it quits. He didn’t want to. He has been kicked out, much like the way Malawi kicked out the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 2020 following demonstrations in the country’s cities and urban areas and the subsequent nullification of the 2019 elections over ‘massive’ electoral irregularities.
The Stockholm syndrome of colonialism is evident in your posts, praising a very cancerous system as a healthier model. Biden wanted to stay! Obama and several other ‘agents’ of democracy backed and stood with “the wise and dynamic leadership” of Biden despite concerns about his fitness to govern. The tinpot Democrats ignored these concerns until it was too late for them. It is too late.
Biden insisted he was the most qualified person to be the president of the US. Does this ring a bell?
“I don’t think anybody’s more qualified to be President or win this race than me,” he told ABC.
Biden was forced to quit because he is unfit to govern, as demonstrated by his disastrous debate performance. Soon after the debate, news was rife that the Democrats were considering replacing Biden. In response to these reports, Biden insisted that he was going nowhere, that he was the president and the Democrats’ nominee, and would defeat Trump.
“Let me say this as clearly as I can: I’m the sitting President of the United States. I’m the nominee of the Democratic Party. I’m staying in the race,” he tweeted on 5th July, just a day after the US Independence Day celebrations.
His posts ever since have been to remind people that he was the president and the Democrats’ nominee, evoking Tywin Lannister’s infamous quote in tweet replies that “Any man who must say, ‘I am the King,’ is no true king.”
He even insisted that he was not as old as people portrayed him to be and that his memory was sharp despite calling Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky “President Putin” at the NATO summit.
“I know I’m not a young guy. I am old. But I am only three years older than Trump,” said Biden on 16 July, just five days before his team forced him to throw in the towel.
It’s not like the Democrats had a choice. The withdrawal was inevitable.
Joe Biden has been removed from power by the same anti-democratic forces that rigged the field for him in 2020 & skipped the primary to anoint him in 2024.
Don’t be fooled. The same @DNC elites that put him in power will replace him with another tool for Wall Street and the war… https://t.co/g0s0KKjAfD
— Dr. Jill Stein🌻 (@DrJillStein) July 21, 2024
Biden’s candidacy was left in tatters after Hollywood billionaires donating to his campaign pulled out. He did not have a choice. All his lieutenants deserted him. He was a lone wolf.
He was unfit and he remains unfit! But he did not quit voluntarily. His hands were tied. That is no person to emulate as a model for democracy, just like Trump and just like the oligarchic system where billionaires determine the outcome of the elections at the expense of the well-being of the people.
Maybe the lesson is: if these African leaders who are hanging on to power don’t leave now, they will be forced to pack their wardrobes like Biden.
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Learning from Chilima’s Tragic Accident and the Need for Dignity and Accountability in Malawi
Following Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika’s death in April 2012, I learned something valuable, though this lesson came months later. By then, it was too late; I had lost some friends and realised my foolishness. I don’t want it to be the same for you! Drawing on my lessons, I hope that Saulos Chilima’s tragic accident in a plane crash, which claimed his life, teaches us something important.
There is no denying that Malawi is in a mess under the current regime. I can confidently say that support for President Lazarus Chakwera is primarily within the ruling Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and among those directly benefiting from his leadership. But consider this: if the roles were reversed and it was Chakwera in that Dornier jet, how would you have reacted? That is what’s key. Perhaps that’s the lesson we need to learn—that there are others in Malawi who would feel the same pain and disgust at seeing Chakwera’s lifeless body shared on social media, rather than celebrating it.
Personally, I don’t care about someone’s status; I just find it inhumane that we have normalised sharing such photos in Malawi. How many photos of road accidents and lifeless bodies are on your phone? It still hurts me to see photos of Qaddafi because of what his detractors, influenced by the West, did to him, because: “They build their world on great confusion to force on us the devil’s illusion.” But we are not them!
Crash site not cordoned off We, as the people of this great country, should not allow such disrespect to happen here—whether it’s a person unknown, SKC, or Chakwera. It is both unethical and, for the first time, I would use this word, “un-Malawian” (read that as inhuman because I don’t really know what Malawian really means in this diverse cultural landscape).
I have never supported SKC, whom I christened as Benja or “I am delivery boy” following his stunt of carrying that bag of fertiliser when he promised to bring down the price of that bag for less than K5,000. Today, I believe he deserves dignity, even in death.
Saying this does not imply that my goal is to censor anyone. As such, I will not join those calling for the arrest or punitive action against people sharing such images. That is an overboard reaction. Actually, it scares me. With such reactions, I learn that Malawi can easily slide into an Orwellian state with the blink of an eye… so many Charringtons eager to serve the Thought Police—calling for the arrest of this one and punishment for that one! If given the chance to follow these “Squealers,” soon we may not even have anyone left to arrest. Everyone will be at Maula! Even talking in whispers and a mere ‘Good Morning’ could become thought crimes!
Today’s tweets following the recent incident show that Malawi can easily slide into an Orwellian with the blink of an eye… so many Charringtons eager to serve the Thought Police!! Arrest this one! Punish that one! Don’t write that! Soon we may not have anyone left to arrest.…
— Pearson X. Nkhoma (@NkhomaPearson) June 12, 2024
I can only make a case that we can mourn or allow those who grieve the passing of Chilima the dignity to do so and give Chilima a dignified send-off. That’s the lesson I learned following the demise of one of Africa’s greatest warriors, Bingu wa Mutharika.Postscript:
The plane crash needs a serious and independent investigation. President Chakwera pleaded with the international community for assistance in the search for what was then the missing plane, which we later learned had crashed about an hour’s journey from Mzuzu. Let that plea be followed by another for an aviation investigation with support from the international community and experts, even from the manufacturer of the plane—this is standard practice (unfortunately, the manufacturer is defunct, so the German government through Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation would be closest to Dornier-Werke GmbH to help us with investigations).
Investigators not wearing gloves In addition to the Germans, Chakwera should also reach out to the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Annex 13 (Aircraft Accident and Incident Investigation) to the Convention on International Civil Aviation (Chicago Convention) provides international requirements for the investigation of aircraft accidents and incidents. It spells out which States may participate in an investigation, such as the States of Occurrence, Registry, Operator, Design and Manufacture. It also defines the rights and responsibilities of such States. Malawi, as the State of Occurrence, may delegate all or part of the investigation to another State or a regional accident and incident investigation organisation, and may call on the best technical expertise available from any source to assist with the investigation.
I am saying this because someone called various people in top government position to alert them about the accident soon after it happened. The names are out there; let those individuals answer for possible negligence, as evidence suggests the crash site could have been found within a few hours after the accident. But due to negligence, it wasn’t, despite several people in top positions being informed. That person deserves state protection, given the unforeseeable risks he may face.
Also, photos of the crash site revealed it was not secured from the public, compromising the site when it was officially located over 24 hours after officials were first tipped off. Additionally, Malawi police and other officials were seen without gloves while around the scene of the accident, risking further contamination.
Unfortunately, this is Malawi. And given our leadership’s capacity (if any exists at all), I doubt an invitation has been extended to BFU and/or ICAO.