Emily Mkamanga

Greed destroying peace in Malawi

As it were, for a long-time Malawi has been known as a peaceful country and its people very tolerant to any form of abuse. Unfortunately, some of the leaders look at the peace in the country as a sign of weakness and that people are timid and can be abused anyhow.

During the one-party rule, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda emphasised a lot on peace and calm whenever he was addressing people. In fact, as a leader, he realised very early the importance of peace in developing a country.

In fact, any sensible leader must know that destroying the peace has serious consequences in the country and, therefore, it is important that he puts preventive measures. A leader who has a habit of not listening to people should know that he or she is a catalyst for instability. For the past five years, some Malawians have been complaining that President Peter Mutharika seems not to listen to complaints about the problems they are facing. Therefore, to such Malawians, voting for change in leadership was the best solution. Sadly, the much needed change has been blocked by the alleged fraudulent May 21 2019 elections by Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC). Denying people change is obviously due to greed. One does not need to be a genius to know that Mutharika’s government had failed. Therefore, Mutharika’s continued rule simply means continuing with the various abuse of power, which is feared to create a lot of hardships to Malawians.

Experience has shown that the worse abuse of the leadership is the lavish spending of taxpayers’ money. For example, there has been a lot of condemnation both in the foreign and local media about the lavish spending of K30 million or so by the First and Second ladies on a private visit to the United Kingdom.

Worse still, they had a 22-strong entourage to pay for. Such extravagant spending of taxpayers’ money is unacceptable, especially in context that people in Malawi are dying due to lack of medicines in hospitals. Such greed by the ‘mothers of the nation’ is of the highest order in a poverty-stricken Malawi. It is sad that those in the leadership, who should better understand the Malawi situation, are taking advantage of the poor and voiceless. Meanwhile, the best thing to do is for the ladies to refund the money, failing which demonstrations will go their way.

While MEC chairperson Jane Ansah is refusing to resign for reasons best known to her, it is sad to note that demonstrations against her continued stay in office are becoming fierce by the day, and slowly destroying the peace in the country. It is time for Mutharika to find a solution but him, too, has decided to be silent while watching peace breaking down.

Malawi is descending to lawless as if there is no leader. Instead, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is relying on its militia wing of cadets, which seems to believe in violence. They attack people without even being provoked. So many people have been victims of beatings and all manner of humiliation.

Probably, the President thinks cadets are for his protection, but everyone knows that the protection for the Head of State is provided by the State through the police and the Malawi Defence Force. What the President should know is that cadets are just breaking the peace in the country and they are created just because of greed for power. There is need for a change of government so as to re-claim the peace in Malawi.

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