Politics of Poverty

by Hope

After I had greeted the esteemed exotic herbalist who doubles as the landlord of this blog, I spent like a century of minutes plus one third of an hour meandering on the keyboard of my Chinese made gadget, one of the few with a RAM of 20kb, without putting the ideas on the screen. One has to admit that even for well-groomed scribes, writing an introduction will always be a painstaking ordeal especially if it reveals your political leanings. Not that I count myself as gifted in the realm of crafting fallacies to make them look like great ideas on paper but for over a year now following Richie Online (should change name of course as he is not even above poverty line) I have realized the effort that him and many other guest writers apply is something that should not be taken for granted. I was always tow-poking on Richie in the past for his lack of clarity on this idea or the obvious spelling mistake on that sentence, and he used to bluff me to say he is not at a grammar school to care for a Dausian literary style. When I go back to read some of the posts on the blog, I get to appreciate why he used that particular idea or imbedded a particular style. To cut the chase, when one does not have preconceived ideas or premonitions over a particular argument then can he be a better judge of an argument. That is why anonymity sometimes preserves the integrity of the person who presents an argument as he or she is able to avoid being victim of ad hominems. Not a bad introduction either.

Introduction to 2017 especially for majority of Malawians has not been rubicund either. Plenty of issues on the local front if one care to use freebasics.com for Facebook. Clicking it while writing I could not miss a story about what they term as the ‘Closure’ of a reputable and historic Times Group’s Media houses for the sin of not paying what belongs to Caesar back to the devil himself. Funny how the majority of hashtag fanatics reacted of course, with a crowd (as usual) blaming Sanjika for punishing the company because of its long leash in the Maize-gate (which was what I wanted to write about); while sober cadets applaud MRA for working vigilantly to ensure there is medicine at the hospitals for our phini-cutters (who fondly call themselves surgeons) to work on. Perhaps those with an inquisitive brain can connect dots that since Dr. Chakwera was allowed to saturate Times TV with tantrums about maize-gate and Big Kahuna’s 1km air polluting convoy having hybrid bazooka-proof Lexus cars in an interview with the Brian Banda on Saturday, the ruling cast has been experiencing hypertension and had to retaliate. A long winded clarification from the new Minister of propaganda, the lord of Latin dictionary and highly trained twister, Nicholas Dausi, has failed to stall the bleeding. Any prophet worth his salt can prophecy that within the next few days our own Senior Chiefs will be on the MBC to put zip down Chakwera’s mouth. Since the details are scanty, one can only assume that there is fishy business especially the timing of MRA dogs to bark on Times. In the words of Gogo Che Bingiman Ayedaya (just made up) one should remember to wash his hands after stealing ndiwo.

The word ‘stealing’ is not enough if we are to describe the experienced long-fingered friends in shiny tailored suits who work at Capital Hill. Cashgate was referred to as ‘looting’ of public funds and a bunch of souls are being paraded to the dock to answer for the sins of the mysterious mother who pocketed 60% of the loot (well if MBC is your trusted source). and there was a K577bn fiasco which was reduced to K229bn after an audit to be the money unaccounted for during the reign of the fake Ngwazi who took permanent residency in the soils of Mpumulo wa Phokoso at Ndata. Among those mentioned in the files were 7 ministers in the current administration and Kamlepo thinks the files will be cremated by the president since his trusted lieutenants are in the forefront of committing the vices. My last post last year here, I pointed that Malawians liked to debate on mediocrity and waste too much time arguing for the sake of it to be seen as if they are doing something. Well I have to commend the media for smelling a dead rat in the recent purchase of maize from Zambia in which an elite group of officials were pocketing large amounts of money as commission by buying from a middleman. Since the story is well documented, I won’t spend time demonizing those involved, and especially in the myopic leadership of DPP for backstabbing us.

I was tempted to join a bandwagon of social media commentators who are calling a recent ruling by the Mzuzu Court to suspend ‘bulldozer’ Dr. George Chaponda from his ministerial post. The controversial injunction faults the Purezidenti for instituting a useless commission of inquiry to inquire a person who is still conducting his duties and outrank the officers in commission. Well, resigning in Africa is a word that is not in the dictionary because if the likes of Chaponda and Admarc boss’ hearts were as clean as guwa la ku Vatican, they would have dusted their bottoms to pave way for investigators and then would be able to laugh at the devil for tempting them. But alas, every politician in Malawi is a thief and they would try every trick in the book to manipulate their way out of trouble.  The political system in Malawi is rotten to the core and the only remedy can be the use of parliamentary democracy where the head of government is grilled every opportune day in the national assembly. Our trust in this government, and those that will be ushered in 2026, should be halfhearted knowingly as we can only pray that this dog or that will steal only a few and leave the rest for us to scramble. If January is this barbaric for DPP, I bet they will be having diarrhea when the days turn into months. Lawyer for government (attorney general) has promised to challenge the court ruling in earnest, backing the thief. He said, let’s not forget the president has prerogative to hire or fire a minister so much so that the courts have muddled against the executive powers blah blah blah,  once a thief….

Talking about lawyers, people of Blantyre through their councilors agreed to get rid of their mayor, his Worship Noel Chalamanda, for doing so much in the city. I liked this guy for being one of the few with real intentions of making the difference in the society. Councilors are not on government payroll apart from honorarium they get when they meet to agree on the revised city rates. And it’s a fact most of these junior politicians think that being a councillor is a stepping stone to being an EmuP, and we shall see scores of them lining up to challenge who is who in the parliamentary race. And this dude humbled himself to leave the poshy doors of Litigation firms in order to serve the city. Well we can argue, but if we can assess the performance of the city councils in Nyasaland, Blantyre can get a distinction. Perhaps his collaboration with BEAM led to Gertrude Mutharika being awarded PhD (honoris causa) for sweeping in the city. And his comrades especially the majority DPP councilors thought that he has failed and should be replaced. There are reports that he was working alone and did not take any other councilors in trips overseas. Chithumba chimafunika kugawana. He has left an indelible mark and it will be a tall order for Mr Ndipo to match the standards. I wonder why we are so obsessed with the politics of poverty.

This is a step backward as young people with integrity will be unwilling to step into political leadership as the old-guards are still in the dancing circle. If he was accorded another term it would have been a vote of confidence and thus rid Blantyre of mediocrity it will witness from this year. In the words of the Arrow (am watching this series again), “DPP YOU HAVE FAILED THIS CITY!!!!!”

Have a great weekend folks and Happy New Year