‘Bingu missed an opportunity on Sata’

Malawi’s former president Bakili Muluzi says his successor President Bingu wa Mutharika has missed an opportunity of mending relations with Zambian president.

Muluzi argues  Mutharika has failed to utilise him (the former president) to speak to Michael Sata, in Lusaka during his two-day visit to that country.

Speaking in an interview with Joy Radio before departure at Chileka International Airport in Malawi’s commercial city, Blantyre, Muluzi, said although he has no word from government, he would take the opportunity to speak to Sata on the sour relations between Lusaka and Lilongwe.

Said Muluzi: “Government of Malawi is aware that I am travelling to Zambia and I want to believe that President Mutharika is aware that I am going to Zambia.

“The ideal situation would have been they should have requested me to find a way to raise this matter with President Sata. But nevertheless, Malawi is my country and Malawi has had a very long relationship with Zambia. Some of us are not happy to see what is going on.”

Muluzi, who was in the year appointed Goodwill Ambassador and Messenger of Prosperity, Justice, Democracy, Human and Property Rights and Respect of Rule of Law in Africa by Africa Heritage Society, said there is need to resolve the impasse because the relations between “the two countries are bad.”

Said Muluzi: “We don’t want to see this situation continue. I may raise this issue with him [Sata] to say: ‘Look, what is happening?’ You know that when President Sata was being deported, he was coming to see me because of my relationship with him as leader of opposition.

“He was driven from here to Chipata, but that is the past. We should now be looking forward… We cannot afford to have sour relations with our neighbours, we cannot.”

Muluzi said he was going to Zambia following that government’s earlier invitation to attend Sata’s inauguration last September. Muluzi said he could not make it that time because it was not convenient.

He said he would also take the opportunity to console families of the two fallen Zambian presidents the late Levy Mwanawasa and the late Fredrick Chiluba since he could not attend their burial as he was in hospital. He is also scheduled to lay wreaths on the graves of the two at the Heroes Acre in Lusaka.

Muluzi said when Sata was elected president of Zambia, he engaged former president Kenneth Kaunda to speak to countries like Angola and China which did not have good relations with Lusaka.

“But here I am, if indeed the Government of Malawi would like to use my experience, I am always available. I love my country,” he said, adding that he was surprised by presidential spokesperson Hetherwick Ntaba’s response that they cannot approach the former president. “Is this the way we are going to operate? Mind you, we need collective solutions to the problems. We have to work together because it cannot only be the government. Some people have got connections and roles which they can play.”

Ntaba this week told The Nation that if Muluzi has anything to offer to provide solutions to the country’s problems, he is free to come forward, but he said government would not approach him.