The long rod of the law and justice

July 16 2020

When he was not so drunk with the stupor of power, Nicholas Dausi once said: ‘The law is like a rod, you use it to whip others but once they get it, they use it to whip you.’

Today, there have been arrests made. In this third republic, those that wronged Malawi or seemingly raped the soul of the nation are being arrested, that Dausian word comes to mind.

Dausi told the rest of us the other day, arresting those in the ancient regime was persecution. No. He was wrong. The long rod of the law is just taking its natural course.

The law is never kind on criminals, especially those who imbue an unnatural course of injustice and petty thievery of the national coffer.

Let us face it. The criminals who ruled us, or seemed to have it lord over us, and robbed us, thinking the long rod of the law will not whip them someday will have to have it tough some day.

That day is not tomorrow.

When I was a cub, I used to go to the courts. One thing that magistrates and judges used to say when delivering such judgements was they were doing so to deter other would-be offenders. But criminals scarcely understand that.

That is not persecution.

In the past few weeks arrests have been made on those so drunk with the trappings and the stupor of power, that they thought the soul of the nation will not come to know of their dealings.

Now is the time for them to realise that the nation is far much a larger entity than fulfilling their egos.

For murder, we hear, some are incarcerated in several prisons. For the murder of one suspect, Buleya Lule, some are having it cold on the floors of Maula and Dedza prisons.

We hear SUV cars are being abandoned for those who can’t survive the hit of the abuses they inflicted on innocent souls time and time again.

For that matter, while the rest of us were having taxes axed like nobody’s business from the little we get and the little things we bought with our hard earned money, some were busy building for themselves in places unfathomable. They were busy on extravagant curtails that run to the lowest of our national pulse.

To get and recapture the true soul of our nation deserves one thing: Those that robbed us must face the law. For murder, extortion, fraud, terrorism, corruption and all manner of wrong, they must dance to that tune.

Why? Because no single soul has ever been above another. We are all equal before the law.

What this typically means is that the rod that is the law is in other hands. They must face the whip to deter other would-be offenders.

How can budgets at State House be bloated so far? It makes sense now, why allocations in the National Budget were so bloated for us to wonder why it was so.

It has been a painful score of years and some to see the national coffers being depleted for personal aggrandisement. It has been so painful to see hospitals only providing the poorest of our poor with nothing but pacifiers when they needed the medication to take away their suffering.

It is a lesson to the ruling elite today and future generations that the long rod of the law will whip them when time comes, if they abuse office with the very impunity those facing the law today did. We can’t, as a nation, spare this rod of the law from whipping and inflicting some pain on those who abused their offices for their personal gains, and their relatives and nuptial associations, legal or illegal.

The argument has always been, our nation is rich. But, it is the people who are poor. Agreed. The national coffer can cater for our needs. There can be enough drugs in the hospitals. There can be enough structures for our schools, that pupils should not die when walls fall on them. There can be enough for roads to be passable for all, not only to the areas seen to be homes of the connected few. There can be enough dams and irrigation schemes created for the feeding of the nation.

Which is why the onus is on the current government to exorcise the spirit of thievery that was synonymous with the fallen government. We are passing through an initiation rite of passage that dipping our hands into the very coffers that Jesus commanded belongs to Caesar, lands us into dreary and cold prison cells in Maula or Dedza.

It is neither about rotting or persecutions. The long rod of the law is just in other hands. Justly, justice will take its course. n