For Ayatollah Wandale, Inkosi ya Makhosi M’mbelwa

We, Abiti Joyce Befu, aka MG 66, Alhajj Mufti Jean- Philippe LePoisson, SC (RTD), the MP Native Authority Mandela, and I, the Mohashoi,  are here in the Supreme Federal Republic of Mulanje, Thyolo, Phalombe and (later) Chiradzulo to meet the supreme leader (Ayatollah) of this  ‘breakaway’  Lhomwe republic. Lest we forget, Ayatollah Vincent Wandale doubles as leader of the People’s Land Organisation (PLO) and, possibly, President of the People’s Land Party (PLP).  So, he is a very important man.

We have asked for an audience. From where we are lodged, the evergreen and ever cheerful Kara o’Mula, we wait with our fingers crossed that the audience will be granted. Chances are that we may not be received at all because leaders of the status of the Ayatollah rarely attend to small landless mortals like us, members of the Bottom Up expedition.  We have carried a bunch of maps of Nyasaland and today’s to reinforce our message to Ayatollah Wandale and other supreme leaders in Malawi.

Understand us. We honestly sympathise with the people of Wandale’s Supreme Federal Republic because they are landless today, mostly, because of the errors, and the lack of foresight of the people and Comforzi’s ancestors dealt with nearly 200 years ago. Ayatollah Wandale and the PLO are simply seeking justice to correct a sad past.

Genuine historians, archaeologists and anthropologists prove to us that before the now-loathed Europeans came to what we call Malawi, our ancestors were a loose collection of tribes, clans and families that often fought over authority and land. There was nothing called nation, State or Republic of Malawi. Some chiefs even participated in the selling of their own people to slave traders such as Jumbe and Mlozi in exchange for calico cloth and beads.

The borders of the country we today call Malawi were defined by the British, Portuguese, and, to a less extent, the Germans. Internally, the British divided the land along tribal and linguistic lines. This partly explains why the Chewa, Tumbuka, Tonga, Lhomwe, Ngonde, Ngoni, Senga, Yao, Sena and Senga, to name but these, are largely found in linguistically contiguous enclaves. Some of these enclaves are today full districts and others, like the supreme territory Ayatollah Wandale represents, are a set of districts.

In the north, the largest such enclave was Northern Nyasa (today comprising Chitipa, Karonga and Rumphi) and second largest was West Nyasa (Nkhata Bay).  We mention this because the people of Mombera (Mzimba), through their supremacist association, claim that theirs has always been the largest district in Malawi since 1904 when their ancestors signed some agreement with colonialists. They have even declared that they are not part of Malawi, but a mere partner in development.

Our position and petition to Ayatollah Wandale and Inkosi ya Makhosi Mmbelwa (Mombera) is that while history is good to know, but implementing it may turn us against each other. In the North, the Tonga and the Tumbuka will start asking and fighting for their land. In the South the Nguru will start chasing the Lhomwe out of Malawi. Malawi will implode if this separatism is promoted and condoned.

Ayatollah Wandale and Inkosi ya Makhosi M’mbelwa should stop overtly or subtly dividing us by delinking themselves from the federal republic of Malawi when all along they subsisted on Malawi’s collective sweat. How will they pay back?

We repeat that that from Titi in Chitipa to Marka in Nsanje and from Ndawambe in Mchinji to Maingano Island in Likoma, Malawi is one territory and one country. No tribe should consider itself above the laws of Malawi. Declaring one part of Malawi independent is tantamount to sedition.

To build our country; our nation; our Malawi we must think as one; act as one; and contribute as one. Our traditional and self-declared supreme leaders must act towards building our country. Our elected political leaders must act towards and put in place policies that make all Malawians feel Malawian. Only then will all Malawians feel obliged to subscribe to Mutharika’s mantra of: Patriotism, Hard Work, Integrity and Unity—this last cornerstone, Mutharika seems to deliberately ignore.