Am I old my Lord?

There was a sad, some of you may consider it an funny, story reported in The Nation of August 24 2015. I am saying it was a sad story because the issue at hand concerned the defilement of an eight-year-old girl in Lilongwe. If there is anything positive about this story, it was that the perpetrator was caught, tried in an open court, found guilty and sentenced to serve in goddam (jere). Now, what others may consider the funny part is that this individual was given a nine-year sentence by a magistrate upon which he appealed to the High Court, that court which the Constitution of the Republic of Malawi says it has “unlimited jurisdiction.” Guess what? Justice Charles Mkandawire thinks hard and adds three more years to the sentence. Instead of nine years, Simon Kamwendo now has a dozen years in prison. My sense is that he is not going to appeal to the Supreme Court, lest the learned judges multiply the sentence by a number greater than one.

Let me go to the point about what interested me in Justice Mkandawire’s ruling. In his re-sentencing of the convict, the judge went on thus: “It is also a shame that the appellant, who holds a position of trust in his location as a chief, should be found committing such an offence. He is an old man who should have treated the victim as his own grand-daughter.” Now, my Lord, Kamwendo was born in 1971. I was born in 1972. Am I old also my Lord Justice? Am I an old man? Should I be having a grand-daughter by now? Are my children failing me by not bringing out a child?

There was another funny story the other day. The issue was that the Ministry of Information (that was before Mr Kondwani Nankhumwa left), had received a letter from the Ministry of Finance to fast track the Access to Information Bill because our development partners (which as you know is an euphemism for something else other than being partners) had put that as a condition for resumption of budgetary support. On the surface, this seems reasonable doesn’t it? But a scratch on the surface, you start wondering when did it start for Treasury to remind the Ministry of Information about Bills that have been outstanding? Seems awkward to me, really. And perhaps to you too?

Let me finish by talking about something more sensible. The security situation in Blantyre. At least during the day there are dozens of armed police officers walking about the streets now. I do not know why, but it pretty looks like Kigali, the difference being in Kigali every hundred metres or so along the road, the armed person does not move about. n