Good people, Malawi President Joyce Banda’s aides are urging fun-starved Malawians to text “I Love JB” in exchange for free tickets to P Square show in Lilongwe next week.
Ours may be a government that keeps giving even when doing so costs much more than the handouts, but the costly spree, personified by presidential safe maizehood trips, is astonishing as Malawians are starving with hard-earned kwachas floating in their pockets.
Even former president Bakili Muluzi experimented with this cheap politics, but those who frequent Kamuzu Stadium for the love of the game told him to stop distributing free tickets because they fuel hooliganism, impoverish sports and leave true soccer lovers outside.
I can say as much about all the Love JB jazz. Entertainment is business, not charity.
Everywhere the Chop My Money hitmakers go, they get sold-out crowds and locals that have attempted to book them tell us they cost a whopping $120 000, about K47.2 million at the current exchange rate which is rising as steeply as JB’s ratings are declining.
By dangling free tickets to those dying to see the crowd-pullers worth much more than JB pocketed to Equatorial Guinea recently, the State House santas are only proving what could be the root of the current economic mess: Somebody is running the nation like minibus crewmembers who dish out money to lousy touts even when the stage is filled with passengers who know where they are going.
If I were Korea-anointed economic engineer JB, I would start investing my change from foreign trips in buying maize and medicine whose shortage is worsening.
Are some powers deliberately starving the nation so that Malawians can worship them for sharing the crumbs?
Robin’s War II
It appears what started as a lacklustre performance at Robin’s Park will become a blockbuster with Moto Wachilendo cast suspended on allegations that some actors were palm-oiled to sabotage its premiere. If this is true, disobeying the script under parallel sponsorship is treacherous, unethical and defilement of art and its sacred spaces—truly something like poisoning a spouse or scoring in own goal.
The sell-outs and their Father/Mother Christmas may remain a secret…for now. But even in the dirty game, secrecy codes require actors to stick by what they disagree with. Let sanity prevail!
