HONORIS CAUSA, BLOODLESS COUP AND RED HERRINGS

with the Venomous Hope

I have to raise a glass (obviously containing thobwa) to this rarefied blogger who also on his time upholds the Hippocratic oath at one of the referrals, for giving me another opportunity to scribble  some sentences which I hope will make sense. Some spooks have mentioned that this landlord is enjoying some sort of vacation, and, like everything weird in Nyasaland, our largely useless ACB must deep their fingers and find out who ordered this holiday. Have to say I asked to write last Friday's article because I couldn't wait to flex my  undoubted prophetic muscles and declare the inevitable fall from grace of  Zimbabwe's nonagenarian leader. Withal, some deacons, pastors, sorcerers and apostles with funny churches and strange gods have already scored one on that such that I will have to register another angle concerning the Comrade.

It's always hard to separate myths about Robert Mugabe to those rare  published substantial bits of his mysteriously long life, obviously he himself created a dark fog that elevated his persona to a semigod. He thought he will rule forever as do some misguided African leaders.  An exclusive club of dictators like Paul Biya, a diety who has ruled Cameroon for more than 35 years,  Teodore Obiang Ngwema who  thinks he has divine right to rule Equatorial Guinea for more than  38 yrs, Denis Sasou who has been worshipped  in Congo Brazzaville for a good part of 30 years, and that  devil incarnate Yoweri Museveni who keeps extending presidential terms, need to be retired permanently. Countries like Chad, Rwanda, Algeria, Djibouti and DRC  also seem ironically to agree that more than 20 yrs their leaders have spent on the thrones is not enough. You can't fool everyone forever, Mugabe coup is just a warning to them. Mugabe could have ruled forever, perhaps  one thing that isn't fuzzy about him  is the level of analytical skills he possess, something  that made him survive at least 2 assassination attempts and allowed him to lord over the Shona and the Ndebele for close to four decades amidst Western sanctions for his wife to shop in Paris. Probably his literature and administration degrees earned  while he was being smoked out by the colonialists is a testament for the kind of knowledge he was able to consume and make use to stay afloat at the palace. But we cant discount the role of the iron lady that parroted his philosophy as if its a Litany for avoiding Gehena, his renegade wife. Since they say behind every dictator there's a  voluptuous Jezebel, Mugabe's second wife,
Ntombizodwa Grace, fits the bill and is renowned for being very passionate about politics and emotional  rather than giving coherent logical arguments. Unlike poles always attract. But then we can only speculate how she left the kitchen and warmed up her way to nearly landing the hot vice presidency seat, along the way silently eliminating those deemed as malevolent to the president, Joice Mujuru and Emerson Mnangagwa being just some of the famous casualties.  Mugabe must have made some of the dubious Zanu PF orders while intoxicated by her extravagant bedroom perfumes, and possibly 'made in' North Korea beddings. One online newspaper article has come clean to declare Grace Mugabe as very dull first lady. Leaving propaganda aside, she wasn't that dull to have been personal secretary for Mugabe in the early 90s, her job description surely must have been classified as top secret even to Mugabe. She graduated from Renmin University of China in 2011 after studying the Chinese language, but everyone knows she can't give more than 3 sentences in Chinese without consulting a Sinitic dictionary. Then, her husband, an eternal Chanchellor,  awarded her the top doctoral degree of Sociology in 2014 after spending an interminable two months at the University of Zimbabwe, quite a genius but there's no trace of her thesis, the CIA are still searching for it.
The moral here is that despite all the riches one may accumulate Africans still feel like they're just a bag of sweet potatoes if they do not own that enviable graduate paper.

Muammar Gadafi created himself Doctor of Pedagogy, just to piss off fellow gunslingers for lacking tact. It's a tradition among leaders to accumulate useless honorary degrees and step on the toes of poor people. I'm not saying some of these are not deserved honors, but the problem comes when those fake papers are magnified to make one look like a brainiac when he is just a toad. Fact that majority of Africans do not have an iota of arithmetics in their heads apart from counting coins is exploited by these so-called well learned gurus who wave their papers in our faces as if they can solve even a sewer spillage in Area 18. We are gullible if we think that if one was a professor somewhere then he is as close to a messiah as we can ever get. Perhaps that's why we give them names like Mose, Njanji, Joshua, Lazaro lol.  I remember during the time of Atcheya, one of his calling cards was that he has been acclaimed 10 times with Honoris Causas by universities that you can't now find on the map unless you are wearing something yellow. And some public university here in Nyasaland did not waste time to give our good First Lady an honorary doctorate for leading the fight against refuse on our bumpy streets. And her elevation was capped off this week by that Chinese professorship MBC has helped everyone to memorize. Well it's not her problem to generously be on the receiving end of international recognition. Nanga afanane ndi Dr Nyangatayani?  What about her husband, the good professor of international law who in 2016 was conferred a doctorate of Human Letters by University of Addis Ababa made in recognition of 'his impeccable leadership and selfless contribution to Africa,' whatever that was... This was inflated on loud speakers later in the same year when a mere London blog called African Leadership Magazine awarded Mapwiyha a deserved 'Medal of Honor for Development' for his outstanding economic transformation people of TA Mtwalo have ever seen, and a long list of Bingu and JB accomplishments is then listed to make support his case. We all know these awards are merely used for political tantrums  and should not be taken seriously otherwise I would have visited a barber today. Africans are obsessed with empty recognition from bogus organizations and colleges, and in turn we award mediocrity. I'm sure that Malawians will not be swayed by these lettered souls in 2019, they are all supported by Jezebels and stop calling anyone a professor, its blasphemy to those who really earned it.

Funny thing for most African countries is that they always go for a lesser devil available. R.G. Mugabe is gone and he is being replaced by someone who has seen it all with the former president, and is rightly nicknamed a crocodile for being behind much of atrocities associated with Zanu PF led government. Mnangagwa is a guy who has shown his colors by masterminding a 'bloodless' coup that culminated in the resignation of his boss. He was frustrated to be left out in the cold by Grace Mugabe's G40 cadates and risked quickly decelerating into a political corpse. We are looking at a crocodile amangwetu, a cunning animal that bid its time before circling it's prey for a final flourish. The former VP used his army connection and public anguish to paint himself a new face, something more appealing and considerate. Zimbabweans will be fooled to think he is different to what they had, he will initially feed on the popular support and win himself a long term and then he will get out of his hiding shell and act like a normal dictator. For 37 years surely there must be someone better than a war veteran, a war of which 80% Zimbabweans never saw. It was obvious Mugabe had outlived his usefulness and was supposed to retire like two decades earlier but getting Mnangagwa even in interim role is similarly extending that old dynasty. Probably Mugabe will be laughing that his friend is taking over.  The so-called bloodless coup was well calculated to make the military still relevant. It must be said that soon after the political triumph of the  Comrade in 1978, his guerrillas living in the bush were incorporated into the new national army. This gave Mugabe, their commander, confidence to snore peacefully on the throne without worrying about any would-be usurpers,  and he consolidated his power by swallowing main challenger,  Joshua Nkomo's party. The veterans have ever since amassed innumerable amount of wealth and grabbed estates under the watch of Mugabe. It was vital that the likes of Morgan Tsangirayi and Tendai Biti should never go near the presidential palace as it spell the end of their lofty benefits. Mnangagwa is one of their own, he speaks their language and will be useful. The change of guard will mean nothing to ordinary citizens if these recycled veterans are still leeching public resources like overgrown vultures.

The dramatic turn of events in Mashonaland should not mask the stench of incompetence that we're smelling right here in Nyasaland. On numerous occasions if you religiously follow this blog I have lamented how dire our level of governance and policy implementation is. Some cadets have already whispered to the big Kahuna to declare himself as one of the youth at a ripe old age of 79 and in 2019 he will surely grace the first line on the ballot paper. I won't bore you with what he has achieved or not to warrant a new lease at Sanjika but one thing is clear Malawians are are going towards the Zim situation. When you tune in to state run propaganda stations, you will wonder on which planet they're living. How can we tolerate a full day of blackout and go on about our business as if all is ok. There's no commitment from those in gaff'ment to ensure that critical services are served. The touted month of December is nigh and they've already started talking about January as a new deadline to end power woes through gensets. Cadets at National Statistics will vouch irrelevant numbers like dwindling interest rates and low inflation but reality is that we have a crisis. All  macroeconomic indicators show to that poverty is on the rise and unemployment is at all time high. After three years and half in power,  DPP seems like a Chitipa Utd, a club  without ideas on how to avoid relegation from the league. Instead of solving problems it has mastered the use of propaganda and repel criticisms whenever Wandale breathes loudly. When a leader blames some guy who is rotting in his coffin or some woman who is loitering around the globe instead of doing the needful to take responsibility as it why people voted him, just know we're heading for disaster as a nation. We can moan all day, the story will be the same. The systems of forcing our leaders to account for incompetence is not noxious for those leaders which is why they keep lying to us every chance they get. In countries like the USA, leaders are grilled for not tucking in the shirts, but here a politician implicated in a maize scam is still enjoying all the benefits without even being suspended from the party. One Saulosi Chilima at a public rally said 'njoka saweta,' to mean those whose slippery tongues have never let slip profanity in the ears of the president. What worries most is that we are fed Red Herrings so much so that real issues are ignored. For example, instead of tackling issues raised by Chakwera in response to the out of touch president's parliamentary statement, the president himself is worried about how Chakwera is demeaning and insulting his office. He goes on to call for psychiatric help towards the MCP leader-  innuendos that only reflect at the calibre of leadership we have in Malawi. Way forward is to agitate for change. We must desist from hearing same tune, it's like we are happy with our poverty. Zimbabweans left it very late but they embraced change and couldn't wait someone to die in office when he can't even hold a pen because of old age. The message to leaders has been clear if we take that by election demolition job into consideration; people no longer clap to any trash thrown at them- ati osawazimitsira magetsi nthawi ya kampeni. It's a slow start but a start anyway. Zomati tamanga nsewu should no longer be considered a major development amangwetu, but most importantly give us lights as soon as yesterday apo ayi  tigawanapo dzikoli...

Of Loving, Liking and Reciprocating

Warning: Title and article may not match.

It  is another Richie Online Friday and here we are with another piece. I have forgiven you if you are disappointed with the fact that this article is not about Zimbabwe. We cannot talk about Zimbabwe because even the military which gsot things rolling is pretty unsure of what they are doing. Let’s leave Zimbabwean issues for Zimbabweans to worry about.

Earlier this week, I found myself pondering upon the mystery of love and its role in shaping marriage and relationships. It probably would not be a very good idea for me to reveal why I got into such thoughts but once again I got to wander through the part of my thoughts jungle where I ask myself as to what love is and what being in love really entails. These reflections led to a chain reaction of thoughts and I got to ask myself as to which one was the best between being on the giving and the receiving end of love. Having answered the question, I got more curious as to what my friends thought about the same. It was at that point that I posed the same question to my Whatsapp friends through a status post (some of you might have seen and responded to it). “Who would you rather be with? Someone you love or someone who loves you?”

To be honest, I did not expect many to respond but the number and diversity of the responses was just overwhelming. While few decided to give me a lecture of how complex the situation I was asking about was, some decided to give a plain answer to the question, citing the reasons why they would rather be either with someone they love or someone who loves them. The former pointed out that for some reason love is a nice thing when you are on the giving end and that sometimes with just enough love you tend to get the person you love to reciprocate. The other group was rather interesting. Most of the people who opted for the person who loves them were about avoiding the risk of not being loved back and some just wanted that extra security. The most interesting point from this group was that of being in control. For some reason, someone felt like thy can pull the strings of the relationship when they are the “loved one”. Somehow, that is how people think about relationships.

As I earlier mentioned, there were some that opted not to answer but to rather give a lecture on how complex the issue I was asking about was. That was a fair point to raise but what people overlooked was that I was asking a crude question without contextualizing it and immersing it into the imaginations of the realities we all live in. You might agree with me that it is (almost) stupid to assume that all people one loves do not love them back or the other way round. In some (if not most) cases, the feeling is mutual in varied proportions. More often than not, however, there is a significant difference in the levels of commitment between spouses or hopefuls in any relationship and this is where the question applies the most. Who would you want to be with? The person who contributes 8 out of 10 and leaves you to do the two, or the person who lets you do the 7 while sluggishly contributing the 3? Rather interesting but that is far from being it when it comes to the full understanding of these things because there also comes the issue of subjectivity and objectivity.

We all at one point have heard or used the saying, “love is blind”. I must admit that I have just gotten to fully understand this saying lately and I am still trying to decide whether it is true or not. In essence, the idea behind the blindness of love entails that someone can easily fall for a person despite their status, background or character. The interesting thing, however is that these attributes cannot be completely dismissed if one is to get into a relationship with the slightest degree of seriousness let alone marriage. What I have come to conclude is that subjectivity and objectivity have complementary roles in the making and sustaining of any relationship. Example? You might get into that thing called love at first sight with the person of your dreams and get along for a moment only for you to discover that they are uneducated, they are broke or they do not like you receiving links to Richie Online articles; consequently forcing you to back out. The other way might be that you might find this nice church-going and respectable potential spouse and like them from the start only to discover that your heart doesn’t really tickle for them when you get closer. There we are with two verbs, then. Loving and liking.

I strongly believe that for any relationship to work there has to be a bit of loving complemented by liking and this is what I would call the complementary nature of subjectivity and objectivity. The blind and subjective nature of love allows people to get together despite their attributes but it is the objectivity (liking) that allows people to stay together by correcting and adjusting to one another.

The problem we have nowadays is that we have become a society of either left wing or right wing extremists who are either too objective or too subjective. While this may be dictated by circumstances, I still believe that there is a way of getting around it. In other words, I do not think it is entirely wise to take in someone based solely on how you feel about them in the same way it is not nice to just pick someone because of their status. The danger with such is that such relationships collapse when you run out of the juice of feelings (in the case of following the bling thing called love) or if the status of the person changes (classic example is when a spouse whose money you followed gets broke).

Solution? While we all have to fall and report to our feelings, we need to employ a certain level of objectivity and decide what kind of spouse we want to settle for. It is important because of the complementary nature of the two things; your feelings and your spouse’s nature. If you are not happy with the way you feel about them, you tend to stay because of what they are and the other way round. Those are two things acting like ESCOM power and a diesel generator, if you want to think about it that way. Every relationship has to be fueled by a bit of both loving and liking.

We probably do not give much thought to these things but I think they are important especially for those of you who have never tasted a relationship. Ma veteran inu you know better than this. Things to consider? Loving and liking, what end of the equation you want to be at and the possibility of reciprocation. Looking at these prior to the conception of a relationship could save us a lot of breakups… Or so I think.

Escomites

It is a Friday and once again we find ourselves reading on Richie Online. It has been an eventful week with the whole issue of blackouts taking the centre stage.

Without wasting time with unnecessary pleasantries and introductions, I should point out that this article is about the Escomites and the drama surrounding their blackout supply operations. The social media is awash with complaints about 36 hour blackouts. Ironically we find ourselves using electronic gadgets to complain about electricity in the same way we use the internet to complain about the poor internet. Truth of the matter is that the service provision of Escom is way below the acceptable levels. Someone once calculated that at the current blackout rate, it is estimated that we get electricity for about five months out of the twelve in a year. Some might think that it is an exaggeration but looking at the rampant power cuts, that duration (or something lower) might be equivalent if not close to what a majority are getting.

There are a lot of questions as to why we continue to suffer with blackouts despite the money that escomites make in profits from power generation. One can indeed not help but wonder why we keep on having the same excuses of "anyani ozimitsa magetsi" and low water levels year in year out as if those are issues that cannot be dressed. To an extent, it makes me think that this is more of a political will issue than it is about anything else. In other words, if people were willing to institute that much needed change, issues of blackouts would have been an issue of the past.

Historians like to tell a tale of how Nkula hydro electric power station was commissioned a long time ago when the nation's population was a mere quarter of what it currently is in the present day. The increase in the population entails an increase in the demand for electricity and thus the need for the expansion of the generation capacity to stay up to speed with the exponentially increasing demand. Obvious as that may sound, there has hardly been any action done along those lines. We have not taken any serious initiatives in increasing our generation capacity and one would wonder whether that is the fault of some ESCOM CEO or someone else higher up.

Talking of the issue of the relationship between electricity supply and politics, we often find ourselves comparing between the Orange and Blue monarchies, preferring the former as it is thought as one that had the political muscle that pulled strings to make power available 20 hours a day and 6 days a week (za enawo sitikamba). I have, for a long time been in doubts as to whether it was really the woman's tricks that sorted out the power but some guys in an opposite corner to some auditorium gave me the answer. According to them, the Orange president had some project going on in which some of the nation's power supply was coming from Tanzania, relieving our old machines, thus making them function at an optimum. The continuity issues we have in our (not unlike other African nations) country meant that the project was discontinued and the Tanganyikas pulled out their cables from Kameme or wherever on earth they connected them. I am assuming that this is something to go by, otherwise I haven't been able to find any plausible explanation for the significant difference.

Many of us have been throwing heavy barrages of criticisms at the management of the power supplier and the energy ministry (and its boss and his boss) for failing to do something. Despite all these blaming fingers, little or no solutions have been offered or enacted. Interestingly there came the move to split ESCOM and come up with ENGENCO, the logic of which some of us are yet to understand as we are yet to be bailed out from the problems the split was supposed to solve.

Rather interestingly, amidst the noises of cry babies came a voice with a solution. Major Prophet Shepherd Bushiri of the Enlightened Christian Gathering stood on a pulpit somewhere in the rainbow nation and told the world that he could solve our electricity woes within a record 48 hours. Boldness. While I am left with the question of how that can be achieved, I must say that I would have loved it if people had let him try. It would have been great to see him succeed and gain more philanthropic (and maybe political and prophetic) points but on the other hand it would have been fun watching him fail (nane ndine m'Malawi so don't judge me). Of course that offer came amidst the spread of a clip in which the prophet was claiming that he had previously offered our electricity generator some financial help, a claim which the PRO for the company vehemently denied. Ndi pa Malawi pano. You can't know who is lying and who is not. Tidzamva pa tsiku lomaliza lipenga likadzalira if there will be time for such.

Of course there were also those 12 people who took it to the streets and peacefully demonstrated against the blackout supply corporation's poor services. I am not sure if their demonstrations were just aimed at making a difference or just showing their anger. Truth of the matter is that whether we demonstrate naked or not, we may never have the power we need because the people who are holding the keys to the solutions of these problems are not willing to do it. Instead they are busy providing funding to city sweepers, tribal groups and political parties as part of the appeasement policy. They are busy getting hefty bonuses and buying poshy cars from the profits of the overpriced electricity as opposed to embarking on a venture that would see you and me in the dream "power all day everyday" setting.

I am told that it took some people's court action for escomites to add the word "towards" to their "power all day everyday" slogan. We should probably take some action to force them to change because from what is happening, we don't seem to be going towards power all day everyday. Talking of what happened yesterday, I am not convinced that firing the CEO of the parastatal and hiring another one would miraculously change the state of power provision in the country. I might be wrong but surprise visits and firings hardly do anything in this country.

Solution?

Gulani power bank ya solar, gas cooker (or mbaula) and any other alternatives to escomite power that you can think of. It will save you the stress.

Have a lovely weekend.

Extracts from Semi-structured Chats 3

Greetings, Reader.

It is another Friday and once again we get to feast on some uncommon sense from this blog. I do hope that you have had a good week and that you will have a restful weekend.

Those of you who have followed these reads for a reasonable period might remember the articles under the same title as the one above. If my memory serves me well (which it is), I wrote two of those articles and they were more of a lament on how we as a nation seem to be going in the negative direction when it comes to development despite the solutions to our problems being obvious to many. Those articles are among my personal best when it comes to Richie Online articles and once in a while I go back to take another peep. Tonight we are treated to the third of the series as we reflect on yet another chat.

About a month or so ago I attended the Annual General Meeting and Scientific Conference of the Society of Medical Doctors (SMD). To be honest, my attendance had nothing to do with the agenda of the conference as I had no intention whatsoever of contributing to the discussions at the conference (I somehow ended up contributing, anyway). I had gone because I had heard that the conference was going to take place at Sun and Sand Holiday Resort and I thought this was a good shot at spending my first night at the place (ndimafuna nane nditakagonako). On a more serious note I decided to head that side because I knew that the big people in the profession were going to be at the conference and that their presence provided a good opportunity for interaction. The other important reasons? Attending meant that I would miss work on Friday and that I would attend a cocktail party at Nkopola Lodge. Who doesn’t love a day off at work and an open bar, anyway? Of course there also was the possibility of reuniting with mates from the MBBS (Doctors) Class of 2016 ndi ziwanda zawo.

As per design, we arrived on Thursday, a day before the start of the conference. I found myself having dinner in the company of four young doctors from the my medical school class, a pack which was later joined by the young District Health Officer and District Medical Officer for Mangochi (Henz ndi Stallin). We had a long casual chat about a lot of things before Henry of them posed the question as to whether we (the five of us) were the only ones to attend the conference from the Class of 2016, the answer to which was a yes. Out of this chat came a long conversation from which I learnt a lot of things.

The very first important thing I learnt from this talk was the importance of finding oneself in places and with people that matter. As I mentioned previously, we had been asking one another about whether we were the only ones from the crop of young and recently graduated doctors. This question conceived a chat around the importance of networking in issues of career development. As professionals (or students) in various fields, we all aim for career advancement and more often than not, we tend to have people who have gone before us as pacesetters in the career. A once in a while chat with such guys comes in handy as you can tap into the wisdom of how they got where they are as you aim at crafting your own means of getting where you want to be, figuring out the do’s and don’ts from the stories of those who are experienced. In this regard, one ought to jump at every opportunity to interact with such experienced people in their fields in a bid to get some wisdom but there is a second catch to it. More often than not, it is these old gurus who have the best ideas as to where you can get the best when it comes to training opportunities and satisfying jobs. Back on that cold evening one of us once pointed out the importance of having a good network of people that matter. It is probably something that a lot of you (like me on that day) already know. What I had not given a serious thought was this thing about the difference between knowing people who matter and being known by people who matter. While most of us would focus on knowing people who matter, the more important thing tends to be being known, as such people can always have your back in your time of need; as opposed to when you just know them (in which case you only have a means of reaching out to them, with no guarantee that they will come to your aid).

Having talked of networking, we switched to something else important and this was about the choice of career paths.  As I earlier pointed out, this thing we were attending was the conference of the Society of Medical Doctors which meant that everyone who was in attendance was a doctor of some sort. The beauty of the conference, however, was that it brought together all sorts of doctors from different types of work environments. There were those who were in the academic sector, those who were in administrative posts and those who were in clinical practice. Of those who were in clinical practice, there were gynecologists, surgeons (those who cut people and patch them up again for a living), pediatricians, pathologists, physicians, orthopods and many other kinds of doctors along with undifferentiated doctors (those who are not yet specialists) like me. The lesson this intraprofessional diversity gave us was the importance of paying attention to the unlimited possibilities in our and any other career. Owing to our limited exposure and opportunities, most of us hardly think beyond the first degree and the civil service when it comes to education and work respectively. The discussion we had enlightened us to do otherwise and shed light on the importance of breaking the bonds of conventional career paths. Rather interestingly, the sentiments we shared on our chat were echoed at the conference when one of the most respectable doctors in the country rose up to point out that for the good of the health system, some of us needed to take off the white coats and drop the stethoscopes to explore other avenues like administration and management and economics. The rationale was simple. There is need for administrators and economists (among others) who have an understanding of what it is like to work in the hospital. I am pretty sure that the same would apply for the many if not all fields around. This speech also reminded me of how we had discussed the issue of the choice of a career paths with regard to the desired number of working days or hours, the returns, field saturation and job satisfaction as well as what it takes to get to one’s dream job. It was an interesting discussion after which we concluded that we all needed some serious reflection with the choices of our career paths before nose-diving into a lifetime of misery, dissatisfaction and financial trouble.

We left the restaurant for the bar at around midnight for our rooms having talked about our careers and other important things. I will be nothing short of a liar if I say the chat ended without some dirty jokes and the mention of a couple of girls and discussion of some college scandals, but to a greater extent we discussed things that mattered. The next day saw the start of a conference at which a lot of important things pertaining to your health were discussed. There was a lot of interaction and yours truly came back to Blantyre with a couple of important contacts having participated faithfully in the swallowship of the solids and liquids on offer at the conference. At the end of it all, it was a fruitful conference as it offered some lessons and reminders of how to build and use one’s network to the benefit of the career and pocket.

This was just a narrative, but I hope you have learnt a thing or two from this.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Namapopa Richie.