Sharpe Valley Police Station deserves a vehicle

Soon after our participating in the 2018 Press Freedom Day events in Blantyre, the City of Darkness, Professor Abiti Joyce Befu, MG 66 and MEGA-1, directed us to visit our brothers and sisters at Sharpe Valley. We drove slowly to enjoy our freedom to travel on our roads but mostly to avoid traffic fines.

We did not want to lubricate a syndicate that is issuing fake general receipts and collecting on-the-spot fines in defiance of traffic laws which clearly indicate that it is only a court of law that can determine traffic wrongdoing and impose a fine.

The Sharpe Valley Area is the start of the fertile Bwanje Valley that covers huge tracts of unadulterated agricultural land that runs down to Monkey Bay, Nankumba, Cape Maclear and up to Chipoka in Salima. Used properly by applying modern farming techniques and equipment, this land, like the Shire Valley in Chikwawa and Nsanje, like the Chitipa-Wenya plains, like the Lumphasa-Kawiya marshland in Nkhata Bay, like the Karonga-Kaporo flood plain in Karonga, and like the Chia-Dwangwa marshland in Nkhota-Kota, can feed Malawi’s exaggerated population of 16 to 18 million year in and year out.

We are pleased to hear here that the Malawi Government is already planning a massive irrigation agriculture project in the Bwanje Valley.  Our fingers are crossed tightly and we look forward to the day when Malawi will feed itself and be an exporter of food or fresh ornamental flowers to the world.  Kenya does. We also can. Our land our chuma chobisika.

Agriculture is and should be our economic mainstay.   It is not by mistake that God, Allah, Budha, Jah Rastafari, Chata and Mulungu gave us this fertile land.  We believe he or she wanted us to be agriculturalists first. We must thus maximally use our arable land. We must maximally use our fresh water to produce our own food, drinking water and electricity.  But by all means let’s not allow our fresh water to flow unfettered to Mozambique and the Indian Ocean.

Egyptians and other civilizations that line the Nile riverine started using irrigation from the Nile 3000 years before Jesus the Christ was born. Today, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the Sudan are damming the Nile to generate electricity and water their crops.  Yet we have the whole Shire River flowing down uncontrolled and undammed expecting God to do it for us.

As the great prophet told us, we die for lack of knowledge, creativity and understanding of our assets. Let’s get back to Jesus’ parable of the talents and get lessons for our country.  Read Mathew 25: 14-30.

Of course, let’s prospect for minerals but only as an addition to what we already have.

We stopped near Sharpe Valley Police and went to admire the telecentre complex nearby and the DPP Bwanje Valley office on the western side of the road. We were busy photographing and selfing when a clean shaven and simply dressed man stiffly but humbly walked to us.

“Can we help you, sir?” Alhajj Mufti Jean-Philippe asked, rather sarcastically.

“I am traffic police constable Ujeni. We have just received a distress call that someone driving towards Golomoti has hit into an oxcart and there are casualties…” the traffic constable explained.

“Sorry. So what will you do?”  asked Nganga Maigwaigwa, PSC (RTD).

“I need to get there urgently but we have no vehicle here…!” constable Ujeni cried.

“But the government recently handed out Chinese Aid police vehicles to every police station in Malawi, where is yours?”  I asked.

“Please?” the constable pleaded.

“Let’s get there urgently!” I said as we walked to our Mitubise Patelo, a car we recently acquired from somewhere.

We squeezed the police constable in and sped off.

“Are you sure your entire Sharpe Valley Police Station has no vehicle?” I asked as we drove towards the accident spot.

“Not even a bicycle, electricity or water!”  the constable swore.

“So, how do you operate in emergencies?”  Mzee Mandela wondered.

“We are creative. We hitchhike; we take bicycle taxis, oxcarts, anything as long as we perform our duties!” the constable said.

“Policing by hitchhiking! That sounds cute. You deserve an award!” Abiti said, amidst bursts of laughter.

“The situation is like this in almost all rural police stations; but we are always blamed for failing to tame crime. Some even accuse us of abetting crime,” said the traffic constable.

“You should one day hold a street march to demand vehicles from police headquarters!” Abiti suggested.

“March?  You want your armed police service to demonstrate?” Ujeni asked in wonderment.