One on the "Transformationals"

It is a wonderful Friday and it feels good to get back to the keypad warrior status.

Can we talk about Nkhwachi for a second? Once my teacher in secondary school this guy is now a good friend and a religious follower of the Richie Online blog. His is a critical mind and when he got a chance to give me his unsolicited review of the blog, he pointed out that my articles were better when they were personal than when they were topical. So what do we say to this man? Shut up, Sir! Today we are going all topical.

About the same time as this five years ago, I found myself queuing up for voter registration. It was my first vote and other than getting excited about the fact that it was the first vote, I was looking forward to contributing to leadership change. To be honest, I was not too happy with the then orange leadership and I didn’t subscribe to Amayi’s style of micromanaging the country. She needed to be replaced.

The lineup of candidates for the presidential election wasn’t rather appetizing. The hot candidates were the former church leader, the brother to the late president and the son of the former president, none of whom I was really excited about. While the pastor seemed to be the good one, his lack of experience on political and state matters stirred a wind of doubt in me. The brother to the late president was not to be given the burden of the high office considering his not so good track record in ministerial platforms and the history of the former president and his management of resources had me having reservations for his son. Nkhuyu zodya akulu zinapota mwana, in this case. The solution was either that of maintaining the orange or trickling down to the lukewarm candidates in a bid to pick the lesser evil.

Five years down the line I find myself in the same situation. Voter registration has started and in a matter of months we will go to choose our leaders. The lineup this time seems to be pretty much the same except for one addition; and I am wondering whether we should be excited about this.

Yeah! If you have been living in this country for the past two months you know that the name Saulosi Chilima has been a common utterance in the (+social) media. It all began when he hinted an imminent departure from the ruling party in which he has been since his exodus from the corporate world prior to the elections. We all know what happened next and how the man in question has been keeping his cards close to his chest. Many accused him of being indecisive and many things along those lines but with his political future in the clear and the launch of his United Transformation Movement in the pipeline, I am left with the same question that John the Baptist had about Jesus; Is this the one or should we wait for another.

Coming from the corporate world, SKC came in as a clean guy with no dents of dirty politics on his jacket. He ascended to the position of running mate to the then hot candidate, Prof Mutharika. In the campaign period and the debates he participated in, his message was clear. He wanted to reform the civil service to make the working conditions better and at par with the corporate world. His tenure as vice president has been marked with an initiation of the reforms in the civil service (we will talk about this later) and he has been described by many as a VP who does business like no other before him (punctual). Young people particularly loved the athletic side of the young “deputy” of the country. He was seen riding bikes, running marathons and shooting threes in a basketball game. Kuchikatolika amachita nawo misa ndithu. In his capacity of heading disaster management, he had good ratings for the job well done. That’s someone a good proportion of the country could vote for, right?

SKC hit the exit door from the DPP and the image that has been painted out here is that he did not want to be part of the thieving tendencies of el presidente’s cronies in the ruling party. The question that most people pose is that of when he realized that this was the case and why he didn’t hit the exit door there and then.  His critics have accused him of being part and parcel of the thieving system and labeled him a co-conspirator in the plunder of the public purse. Then there is his track record. While this is not much of an unusual thing, many lamented that he had minimal visibility as a vice president. Akuterotu.  The two points have led those who focus on the negative side of the youthful “presidential aspirant” to label him as an opportunistic and power hungry guy who just wants to steal the moment for personal gain. True? I don’t know.

It is interesting to note that since this whole Chilima fever started, there have been two significant audiences that he has granted to the media. The first one was the press conference in which he, without further detail indicated that he was not going to contest for any post at the ruling party’s convention. Many were quick to point out that he needed to shed more light on his political future considering that there was a movement that was wooing crowds in his name. Others came to his defense, alluding to the fact that it was more of a strategy. Then bingo! A highly publicized interview with Zodiak’s own Gospel Kazako. Many Chilima enthusiasts were expecting the gospel of what the movement was to be called and what colors they were going to be wearing. To their disappointment, the indecisive side of their leader appeared again. I immediately joined those who questioned the VP’s silence on what people needed to hear the most.

A couple of weeks down the line, we have finally heard what we needed to hear. SKC is joining the presidential race under his United Transformation Movement. The launch dates and venues have been confirmed and a doubting Thomas like me can only wonder whether the VP will be there in person (I know zikumveka zopepera). The conflicting opinions on whether he has delivered on the promise of reforming the civil service make it difficult to decide on whether he has the muscle for the high office. The presence of some old politicians in the movement surely makes everyone who is on top of his semantics think of whether the word “transformation” is for real or just cosmetic.

One prolific social media writer, Mankhokwe Namusanya, wrote something very interesting about the events leading to the 2004 election and how the then president’s right hand man ditched him to form his own party, attracting crowds with each rally only to flop in the elections. I might have been connecting dots that were not there, but I saw a pattern. Perhaps this might just be the time we learn that the only thing we learn from history is that we cannot learn from history.

If I want to be alive till next year, seeing how the transformation movement fares will take two spots on my top five reasons for living.

Anga ndi maso.

33 YEARS ON; STIGMA STILL LIVES ON

a tale by Pemphero Mphande

I work for a local NGO, Forum for AIDS Counselling and training for which I am the executive director. In working with young people, we have made social media the biggest tool for our messages. We have a program where we counsel and talk to young people regarding sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and in particular HIV.

In August of 2017, we received a text through our Facebook page from a young man from Blantyre who said he had had unprotected sex with a female he suspected was HIV positive. As is protocol, the administrator of the page tried to engage the young man to see if any help would be offered. The easiest approach was to find out when the incident happened and if it had been not more than 72 hours before, he would be encouraged to go to a nearest hospital for PEP (Post exposure prophylaxis). PEP is short-term antiretroviral treatment to reduce the likelihood of HIV infection after potential exposure, either occupationally or through sexual intercourse which must be taken with 72 hours (3 days).

This information was inquired and the young man affirmed that indeed, he had had sex just on the previous day which on assessment turned to be about 14 hours ago. It was therefore, explained to him that he should go to the nearest health centre to seek PEP and the requirement would be for him to be tested first, and if found HIV negative he would be given the 30-day, single tablet a day prescription. To the administrator’s surprise, the young man refused and instead, asked if we had PEP which we could give him without being tested.

It was at this point that the administrator asked me to take over the conversation. Why? He wasn’t going to tell him, “Ok, we don’t have it and we are not an authority to dispatch such, so sorry I can’t help you!” That would be against our policy which is to help anyone who comes to us for help in a way that respects human dignity, respects standard procedure in line with the current National AIDS commission policy and the ministry of health’s policy but also the way that the client is comfortable with.

When I came in, the first thing I did was to read the conversation from the start and here is what I noticed from the start, “Please, keep my name anonymous. I need your help”. That said it all to me. The problem with the young man was STIGMA and fear for discrimination. And indeed, he affirmed that by telling me, he was scared to go for HIV testing services (HTS) because he was scared of the health care workers who he said, “tell results to people”. He further explained to me that his mother who is also living with HIV found out that the nurse at the clinic she goes to collect her ARVs had told her close friend she was HIV positive.

In the end, I failed to convince the young man to go for testing. He said he would observe himself and if anything he would let me know. I gave him my number and assured him that his secrets were safe with me. I forgot about the young man and weeks went by. Then on the 20th of September, 2017 he called me. He said he wasn’t feeling well. He was feeling fever, nausea and had persistent nasal congestion (a flu like symptom).

“Could it be HIV?” he asked me. I didn’t know what to say because to me those felt like symptoms of the early stage of HIV infections which among others includes the following symptoms (Fever, Fatigue and headache, swollen lymph nodes, achy muscles and joint pain, Skin rash, Nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, Sore throat and dry cough, Night sweats)


These symptoms vary between individuals however the first signs of infection generally appear within the first 1-2 months. Many, but not all, people will experience severe flu-like symptoms which is your body’s natural response to the virus. This is called the ‘seroconversion’ period.

I suggested that him and me meet, to which he reluctantly agreed after I assured him of privacy. We met two days later at our office in Mount-pleasant. Apart from the flu like symptoms, he also had swollen lymph nodes. It took some convincing to get him to go for testing and he was indeed found HIV positive, three weeks later.

When I called him to seek his permission to write this article, on Tuesday, 28th November, 2017, he said “No names please” and later told me, “I have just taken my today’s pill”.

This is one case of a person who most likely got HIV when it could have been prevented because of stigma. He tells me he regrets refusing PEP. But how many people out there are scared today to go for testing, treatment or to come out in the open about their status because they are scared of society’s perception? Many. And I have encountered many young people in sexual relationships who have unprotected sex because they are afraid to go for testing and trust each other to be negative.

This year is 2018, and marks 33 years since the first case of HIV in Malawi was reported at Kamuzu Central Hospital in 1985. Stigma which can be defined as a form of prejudice that discredits or rejects an individual or group because they are seen to be different from the mainstream has also lived on for all those 33 years. In the case of HIV, people living with the virus are regarded as the “the sexually promiscuous ones” and therefore face discrimination.

Yet in all the time that has passed, we have seen people live with HIV for 20, 30 years because treatments have improved and people now say “it is no longer a threat”. So why has stigma persisted? In Malawi stigma has a history.  For example, Dr Banda, the president in 1985 believed that issues relating to sex, including HIV transmission, should not be addressed in the public sphere and it was almost illegal then for citizens to discuss the epidemic openly. This has contributed but the reason is because HIV has been associated with “sexual immorality” and therefore no one wants that association.

But the writing on the wall says; with continued stigma the goal to end HIV as an epidemic by 2030 under the current global 90-90-90 targets will be a challenge. We can introduce compulsory testing, but we cannot force people that feel discriminated to show up for treatment, take their treatment, tell their family and friends and not to go on spreading the virus to others- it is therefore, time to reconsider our approaches and policies to focus on behaviour change that tackles stigma and discrimination even more while we champion treatment.

Author:  Pemphero Mphande, 25, is a graduate from the University of Malawi, College of Medicine. He is the founder and Executive Director of FACT, a local NGO providing sexual and reproductive health and rights services to young people in Malawi.