Malawi’s former president Bakili Muluzi, who is frequently being spotted at public functions both locally and internationally, says his appearance does not mean he has now recovered from the operations on his slipped discs.
Muluzi made the remarks at Chileka Airport in Malawi’s commercial city, Blantyre, on Wednesday on arrival from Pretoria, South Africa, where he and other former heads of State and government met newly elected chairperson of the African Union (AU) Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.
“Yes, I am well, but not well enough to say that I am that stable. My problem is a mechanical problem. It is not as if I sleep on a mat and groan. But as long as I can…walk, I can…attend [public] functions,” he said.
Muluzi arrived aboard a South African Airways plane and was, as usual, picked by his top of the range Range Rover. He later greeted a file of his UDF party politburo where he is patron before addressing the press.
He said he is attending government functions because President Joyce Banda is accommodative.
On the meeting with the AU Commission chairperson, Muluzi said it is admirable that the commission has a female leader for the first time.
“That is very significant. We do not want her to fail,” he said.
Muluzi said Dlamini-Zuma requested the former presidents, who included Joachim Chissano of Mozambique, Sir Ketumire Masire of Botswana and Dr. Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, to be in a committee that will look at the strategic plan of the AU.
Muluzi is an executive member of the African Forum, an organisation comprising former heads of State and government, which works closely with the AU secretariat in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
In the recent past, Muluzi was declared unfit for trial in the K1.7 billion graft case on health grounds. In May, he was in South Africa for medical check-up and proceeded to Lesotho on a Commonwealth Elections Observer Group.
