Nankhumwa is no Goebbels

I fail to understand why the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) tries so hard to make itself hated.

And they will stop at nothing to create a martyr out of the former president, the late Bingu wa Mutharika.

Their commemoration, in March, of the Midnight Six’s arrests over treason in 2013 was ill-timed, ill-advised and a needless provocation of public patience. That pales in comparison to their comedy last Saturday at Bingu’s memorial, however.

The events of last week have had the whole nation angry with Ministry of Information and Something Else, Kondwani Nankhumwa. I am not.

Nankhumwa lamely insinuated that former president Joyce Banda had a hand in the death of her predecessor. He brandished an article in a newspaper — which no one has recollection of — which presaged Bingu’s death.

That President Peter Mutharika eventually suggested that Nankhumwa was just running with his own imagination is neither here nor there. In any case, Mutharika’s statement came when Nankhumwa had been to hell and back. But pay no attention to any of it — Nankhumwa’s fantastical claims and Mutharika’s feeble disclaimer — it is all a cheap diversionary tactic.

So, while we have invested our collective energy in dissecting such a non-issue, we have taken our eyes off Malawi Savings Bank, which is going under the hammer because DPP politicians helped themselves to its fortunes and the government wants you and I to pick up the tabs.

So good was Nankhumwa at being bad, we have forgotten that Mutharika’s State of the Nation Address was so lame and insipid that Malawi Congress Party president, Lazarous Chakwera — known for his piety and measured words — called him out as a reckless leader who is feeding the nation a cocktail of lies. Such is the atmosphere of ridiculousness in DPP that Minister of Labour Henry Mussa stood up to Chakwera and ludicrously claimed the president can’t lie. Maybe not this president. Mutharika has a previous. The records of the Singini Commission say he lied under oath. If he could lie under oath, with the threat of perjury hanging over him, what would stop him from lying in Parliament when he faced no threat to his freedom?

If there was any good that came out of Nankhumwa’s mouth, it was that it confirms why JB is reluctant to return home. She knows the knives are out for her.

But such was the state of our anger and derision that we forgot that DPP’s partner in government — United Democratic Front — is in a crisis of leadership so deep it needs our collective effort, if only for preserving a piece of our history in the fight for freedom. We should have been debating why Atupele Muluzi is no Nick Clegg despite the eagerness of people to draw parallels between them. Clegg went into government with his party; Atupele went in with his father and dragged everyone after him like some petulant kid pulling her doll.

Clegg won’t be the first lesson Atupele has faced in life. Yes, the Liberal Democrats haemorrhaged badly in the UK elections last week but so did Inkatha Freedom Party after Nelson Mandela sweet-talked them into government; their steady decline has seen their parliamentary seats whittled from 43 in 1994 to 10 in 2014.

Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has become Morgan’s Destructive Cartel after the party squandered the people’s goodwill; it won 99 seat in 2008 and 49 in 2013.

The Alliance for Democracy (Aford) is a living lesson about how a thriving entity can sacrifice consensus at the altar of personal aggrandisement. From over 35 seats in 1994, Aford barely clung to its one seat in 2014. Sadly, UDF is headed in the same direction. UDF holds no sway beyond the borders of the Eastern Region and even that is getting eaten up. Lucius Banda has renegaded. Benedicto Chando, an independent MP in the heartland of UDF, Mangochi, has grown cold feet over plans to join the party.

We should have been discussing how we can save UDF from self-immolation — not Nankhumwa’s fantasies. Some idiocy is best left to itself, lest you give it credence.

Thousands of Malawians are still trapped in camps due to the flooding early this year and have gone weeks without food. In our quest to get angry over trivia, we have forgotten all that.

Now that Nankhumwa, in his warped senses, seems to be seeking justice for ‘Bingu’s murder’, what about applying the same gusto in seeking some for Robert Chasowa, who was murdered in cold blood under the very hand of Bingu in 2011.

I’m not angry with Nankhumwa; he is just a small cog in the larger scheme of things. I am angry with ourselves for letting the likes of him own and direct our currents of thought.

At the farcical rate DPP is conducting these events; I shudder to think who they will accuse of treason on Independence Day.