YES PETER MUTHARIKA IS CLUELESS, BUT IS IT HIS FAULT?

Bluntly speaking, I have never found in Peter Mutharika what his supporters say he has.

From the time Project Peter was hatched when his brother was around, he has failed to take charge and meet the ever-hungry expectations of his party supporters and now of the whole population of Malawi.

Before elections we were told of a man who has vast experience on university lecterns. Not only that, irrelevantly we were also informed that Peter owns a law firm that employs more than 600 lawyers somewhere in the United States.

In the midst of all that worship, I was one of the people who wanted to appreciate how such a man can help transform Malawi in any role up until he failed to perform as cabinet minister in all three portfolios his late brother put him in.

My fears started creeping in when during Presidential debates. Peter not only failed to communicate eloquently but did so with very empty and laughable promises.

In case you missed it, one of the craziest electoral promises he made was; 

"When am elected President I will make sure that boys and girls have one partner"

Holy crap, I screamed. Is this man sure of what he is saying or he is just trying to fill the gaps where he can't find proper words? Is he a spiritual leader or a politician?

Come inauguration day, our Peter (with pomp of course) used his first speech to throw around some quotes, sadly in a wrong context and at wrong people.

"I am holding an olive branch in one hand, do not let me drop it" he repeated this one.

Whoever or whatever told him that he was at war with someone misled him. Yes we had a divisive election but no one but Mbendera was to blame. 

So, it made me wonder why the famous Yassir Arafat quote was being used in a situation that has no single similarity with a disputed electoral process.

Six months down the line, Malawians are now realizing that they sowed the wind and they are reaping the whirlwind.

The man with a 600-lawyer firm has been exposed and the country has come to a standstill.

When close to 6,000 teachers go on strike, he still sees no reason to come out as President to address his citizens. Communication of these crucial matters is still left in the hands of P5 civil servants at Capital Hill to answer angry and desperate teachers who have never seen a penny since he became President.

Six months down the line Malawi looks unredeemable and it seems no one has the resolve to drive it.

The President, despite spending most of his time in office, is not coming out clean on what we ought to do as a country to regain our stance and move forward with one purpose.

Malawians need a leader who is going to be honest regardless of how much pain is impending. We need him to take charge, look us in the eye and tell us;

We will hike University fees by 400 percent get ready

We will hike passport fees by 300 percent get ready

Prices of basic goods will go up get ready

Teachers will be paid at some point but not now, get ready

Malawians need honest answers not a cautious approach which only blinds multitudes to believe that things are okay when they are not.

Having said that, I throw all my blame on those who worshipped Mutharika before elections and those who blindly do so today.

The man is simply not what we were told he is. He lacks strong resolve when dealing with delicate matters and he seems slow to devise concrete remedies for an ailing society.

He might not change his approach but surely the bootlickers will keep on. The problem this time around is that he is on the hot seat and Malawians have a chance to rate him on their own.

MUTHARIKA IS PLAYING NAIVE BY BEATIFYING MULUZI, THE KAPOLOMA MAN MUST FACE JUSTICE

As I write, President Mutharika is seated in his comfortable chair playing Russian roulette with one of the most clandestine politicians ever to grace Malawi, Elson Bakili Muluzi.

The likely victim in this duo-roulette is the State President himself. Elson Bakili Muluzi is holding that revolver loaded with one bullet and chances are high that he might raze that it into Mutharika's political flesh with every Malawian watching. The outcome will surely not be a sweet spectacle.

If your political closet is stuffed with knowledge equal to mine, you will agree with me that Bakili is not a simple-minded politician.

Almost all the current prominent politicians, with exception of Peter Mutharika and Lazarus Chakwera, have gone through the political furnace of Muluzi, and he knows how to get around their minds in a single flash.

Weeks ago we heard that the toothless, yet pompous, Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) had returned tens on Bakili's vehicles that were impounded as part of investigations into his alleged embezzlement of K1.7 billion of public money during his rule.

Before we got real answers, Bakili's convoy was cruising past lion gates of Sanjika Palace to meet the State President for what we were told was a courtesy call to discuss some Commonwealth role.

Now the plot thickens in that the Mutharikas are renowned for looking easy to prowl on but they bite hard.

Muluzi must have learnt a lesson when Peter's brother, late Bingu, chameleoned on him only months after winning the 2004 elections. Does the Kapoloma statesman need another bite from the younger Mutharika?

We might be a religious people but when Muluzi features at State House and smiles before the cameras just know that the man from Kapoloma has a motive, a hidden one for that matter.

Do not fear Muluzi the man as you know him. One side of him presents him as a feeble old man struggling with his back and trying to get clean of the infamous K1.7 billion case weighing on his heart.

Behind the scenes he manages to push Atupele to the political front, lets him pour out empty agendas, lose an election while attacking MEC Chairperson and helps him jump into bed with President Mutharika the very next day.

All that Elson Bakili is doing is simply for his own good and sadly President Mutharika seems to miss all this, or should we say he pretends to miss it.

The former President finds his windpipe choking whenever someone mentions the figure 1.7 billion. He knows that is his scar.

Instead of clearing himself through the proper legal channels, Bakili hops from one leader to the other so as to find comfort and sweep his "sins" under the carpet.

He and Mutharika must remember that Presidents are accountable to the citizenry both during their time in office and after it. So if Malawians want to know what happened to their K1.7 billion then even President Mutharika has no mandate to shield a man whose immunity vanished more than ten years ago.

If Muluzi is innocent in this whole thing, then he must face the law and let it clear him not wasting our time trying to become an instant angel.

At the rate we are going, I think an official announcement should be made that Elson Muluzi's charges have been dropped. And thereafter we should stop fighting corruption as a country.

Mr Muluzi, you can dress in a white robe and get beatification from the current regime, but we, THE PEOPLE, need justice to be done.

Only the law, not Peter Mutharika, should forgive Muluzi.

DOES THE WEST HAVE AFRICA'S PERCEPTION ON EBOLA? THAT IS WHERE THEY MISS IT

A part of our continent is under lock. Life, as we know it, has come to a halt.

No schools in session, no normal markets, postponed elections in Liberia, spontaneous quarantines and millions of lost revenue is what best describes the impact of the Ebola epidemic on the Africa continent.

Meeting after meeting of fundraising but little seems to change at the heart of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea's devastated communities.

For eleven months now the West was looking away thinking that this was just another African problem that can be handled within the continental borders.

Only after American citizens contacted the disease did we see US President Barack Obama calling for global response and declaring the epidemic as a threat to world security.

The follow-up reaction has been found wanting with the focus being on stringent checks at some airports in the US, all this after a Liberian man who was diagnosed within America was hospitalised and later died.

I am in total agreement with what World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim, said at the Ebola Crisis High-Level Meeting held in Washington.

He says relying on a strict regime of incoming-flight checking as a way to deal with Ebola is like placing wet towels under your door when the whole house is on fire.

"You've got to put the fire out," he sums it up

The fight must be taken to where it started and a wholesale integrated strategy must be first employed to uproot the problem.

If stakeholders fail to understand the communal life of Africanism and the empathy bonding that comes with it then more Ebola cases will emerge and the response will still be inadequate. This is not about money alone.

Any more delay at this stage might allow the epidemic to spread to other parts of Africa and that will be a complete disaster. Most Africa governments cannot manage to deal with the problem of this magnitude due to poor and underfunded health systems.

Now imagine an Africa with Ebola spread from one end to the other? How many communities would grasp the fact that contact with a terminally ill person or a corpse is a no-no requirement?

What Africa needs in enormous amounts is social propaganda or a complete rethink. Africa needs information on how to handle the disease.

Without being negative about America's intervention, I still believe that empowering local armies, hospital staff and even common people with information, equipment and moral support is enough to get things done.

Thank you for the 4000 troops but 4000 well-informed common people in West Africa can get things done.

I am well reminded of a Liberian girl who improvised plastic bags and used them to cover her mouth, hands and feet in the process saving four of the five members of her family.

Empower Africans because they understand their communal way of life. Empower them with information, give them necessary materials and let them do the job led by their health personnel.

Once again, the fight against Ebola must be intensified in the hot spot (Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone)failing which the impending millions of deaths and an economic backlash of $33 billion by next year are a gazing reality.

AMERICA'S PROJECT ON WORLD PEACE IS A JOKE

One blessing I have as a writer from a Third World country is the space of mind I have to observe global politics without the attachment of emotions (except empathy for the oppressed) or the urge to immediately join the cause to change things.

From the day I witnessed Obama taking oath of office and sending the whole world (mostly Africa) into frenzy up to this moment, I can say without doubt that the man from Kenya has sold an American agenda that has failed to enhance the Free-World brand perception among world citizens across the globe.

My mind takes me back to many months ago when President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, reiterated the need for Syria leader, Bashar Al Assad to go after his government was accused of handling protestors with an iron fist.

Fast forward to now. Assad sits on his throne in Damascus albeit with a country heavily demolished from a 3-year war between government forces and rebels (we are told there are moderate and extremist kinds of rebels, whatever that means)

It is now clear that the new stance taken by Obama to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levante (ISIL) looks like a jerk-knee reaction from a world leader who has run out of options.

Had he dealt with Assad with strong resolve and with world consensus, we would not have been talking of ISIL in the form it is today.

In his 6th year of leadership, Obama is now labeled as a leader who has exposed America's weakness in finishing projects they start. When we thought Obama had come to smoothen the chaos of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the bi-faced man sent drones to Somalia and Pakistan, supervised the fall of Gaddafi, Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak among others.

As if that was not enough, his backroom maneuvering later on ejected Egypt's duly elected leader, Mohammad Morsi, in favour of another military man even after Egyptians had already dealt with militarism during earlier Tahrir Square protests.

It is of no doubt that the America Project is surely easy to launch but almost impossible to finalize and take proper stock.

Look at Libya today, it is in tatters today without any functional central government, Afghanistan remains a cosmetic democracy while Iraq is a shadow of a beautiful and vibrant economy that it was under Saddam Hussein while Syria might be heading towards another brink of chaos.

Furthermore, Ukraine (whose mass protests against a duly elected government were heavily funded by America) has taken a very strange and ugly twist. All in ghe name of democracy.

Hasn't it amazed us enough why every hotspot on the face of the earth has a fingerprint of the world's global police, US of America?

Isn't it now time for institutions that made America what it is on global politics to be restructured and allow other other equally important stakeholders from across the board to participate in bringing world peace?

If we let America retain too much and unnecessary power within the United Nations and NATO then the plot is as well as lost for tranquility in the world.

Even from here, I see a lot of things wrong with how Obama and his America fail to read and decipher the tensions between the Shi'ite and Sunni sectarian divide. But it always seems that America thinks it can solve all problems in the Middle East with a one-cap-fits-all approach.

Now that ISIL is the contemporary problem, Obama speaks as if if and when these extremists are eliminated then everything will fall into place and normalcy will return in Syria and Iraq.

I will still be here to witness when the so-called moderate Syrian rebels US is funding today graduate to another thorn in the flesh of world peace, even more than the current ISIL. And I will be here to write again.

EITHER OUR CABINET MINISTERS ARE DAFT OR THE PRESIDENT IS DESPERATE

I am informed that White House officials have a way of testing the waters or letting the cat out without putting POTUS (President of the United States) at the centre of the show.

If an issue is sensitive and the US government decides to preempt it to the stakeholders, POTUS will invite his most trusted news correspondents from top media organizations and tell them the story as it is, from his own mouth.

Boom, a scoop is achieved and the next hour will see all major media houses quoting a White House official hinting on US sending drones to Republic of North Malawi for instance.

It has been their tradition and they seem to have mastered it. It is safe in their hands and does not defeat the purpose or execution of their policies.

Now back home, all the planning and "calculation" becomes a clip of animation by characters bent on hoodwinking the populace with lies and manipulation.

After planning and brainstorming, information from State house leaks and newspapers lick the leak.

"APM REJECTS MINISTERS PAY RISE" screams one daily followed by hand-clapping from some quarters.

"What a leader, he has stopped a bad move" they chatter among themselves.

Give me my laughing mask, this is the time to laugh.

First, let me remind you countrymen and women that the 100-day moratorium for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) led government is fast approaching. Six days from now, President Mutharika will have clocked 100 days in office.

It is at this cutting mark that everybody wakes up and starts analysing what has been and has not been done in relation to campaign promises or recurrent government operations.

Fearing that the new Head of State has not done much on defining the path he and his government want to take to emancipate Malawians from dire poverty, his team is panicking and devising ways to start shifting our minds from the real stuff.

By now we know that civil servants will not have their perks hiked by 50 percent as promised haphazardly during campaign period.

Equally, we are now certain that despite massive registration of names in the Cement and Iron sheets Subsidy Programme, His Excellency has distanced himself from the exercise saying those doing this should be arrested. As far as he is concerned the programme is still under incubation and might only kick off sometime next year.

These, and other economy issues, are what Malawians want to hear from their government.

It is at the back of these promises and the agonizing push towards the 100-day traditional deadline that State House officials are bringing in the concerns by cabinet ministers to have their perks upped by some 583 percent.

I am not moved by this story which strangely has found its way onto the front pages of both credible dailies.

From the body and intuitive language, the new cabinet ministers still feel very privileged to have found a way into a lean structure that was put together as a cost-cutting measure in as far as government expenditure is concerned. 

Without trying to negate their personality, they still worship the new President who they are yet to mind-read on how he reacts to those who try sabotage him.

It would be suicidal for such a team to wake up one day and demand astronomical changes to their perks knowing well that this is not the right time to do so. In short it is too early for a lean cabinet to demand insulting figures like those from a leader who seems cautious of public opinion.

However, I understand that when the moratorium ends on August 31, pressure will start mounting on what the President has done to show seriousness of his leadership.

I know we will be told that His Excellency is a visionary leader who reduced the number of cabinet ministers from 32 to 20. 

We will also be reminded of how his lean cabinet is getting greedy by day to a point of demanding an unrealistic perk increment in the face of economic hardships. 

There then we will be told how the visionary leader has curtailed moves by his "greedy" lean cabinet to derail the much touted cost-cutting measures. 

Believe you me, at this juncture the story will start contradicting.

To be safe, I will perceive your Public Relations stunt with a closed heart and I hope you don't repeat such an act in future.

It either puts the cabinet to the leash of public anger or unearths the uneasiness in the First Citizen.

OF SEXUALITY, POLITICS AND AIR LIFTS; JESSIE KABWILA HAS A HIDDEN MOTIVE

Feminism scholars and commentators have all agreed that men including 'great leaders' have not yet found a remedy for their weakness of failing to stand strong against the power of a woman.

Female power exists; it hangs over every man. Period.

Men that failed to harness Woman Power are numerous to count but even those we manage to count possess phenomenal greatness in many aspects.

Ranging from Bible characters - Samson, David and Solomon; great kings and Presidents - Belgium's King Leopold II, US Presidents Lyndon B Johnson and Bill Clinton; world movers - former IMF boss Dominique Strauss-Khan and of course Grey Nkungula. All have had odd episodes with women that led them astray and changed how people perceived them before.

Owing to the above, anything that happens in politics involving a powerful man and any woman is not a trivial matter.

Solomon married many women from other monarchs to expand his kingdom just as former Gabon President Omar Bongo married daughter to Congo President, Daniel Sassou Nguesso as a way of leveraging his influence in the region politically and financially.

Once again, nothing happens for no reason.

As such I will not join the chorus of praising coincidences when my mind can explore other frontiers from which to look at any issue.

My perception is not biased on how leaders fall weak at woman power because one thing I am well aware of is that my President is a happily married man. My worry though is the motive other women might have to bargain for what is not duly theirs personally, socially, politically and even economically.

To be safe, let us stick to political implications of the recent headline material of Jessie. Yes, you know what we are talking about here.

Jessie was in Zimbabwe. The President was there too. Jessie went to see the President. Jessie was offered a lift. End of story. Come on, that's a kindergarten script.

Politically, here was a lift offered by a party and State President to an opposition legislator in his country's August House.

Is that all? May be, may be not.

Jessie is a highly charged and calculative accomplished academic whose moves bring with them a bargain for publicity or more.

Remember the time she made a name by keeping late Bingu on his toes? Do I need to tell you that the woman begged for publicity from her media friends so as to get a platform from which she was going to be relevant to the national ear?

Now about Victoria Falls and a jet lift there might be more to the story.

First we never had a chance to ask deeper what she was doing in Zimbabwe but a few things need probing here. 

A day before she got the lift, Jessie paid a courtesy call at the President in his hotel suite, so I hear.

I am however troubled at how she managed to win this appointment. Let us not fool ourselves that it is easy to see your President regardless of where you both find yourselves. Simply put, an appointment with President Mutharika would still be hard to acquire even on the face of the moon or Mars.

Knowing the people who surround the President now, allowing one of the loudest critics just to meet him simply because they are both in Mugabeland is a thought yet to be born. We all know how these guys are rough towards those who criticize their man.

Fine, Jessie got that appointment. During their discussion, one of them mentioned of the return trip and just like that, their return schedules coincided and they were on the same plane the next day. What a fairytale. 

For goodness sake, Jessie has only been publicly MCP for a less than a year and one would think that she used the party just to get into Parliament.

Is she looking for more than being a mere MP? You cannot rule out Jessie's ambition. Is she trying to bargain for something here?

Two things.

One; Mutharika and Jessie might have planned to hold their talks in Zimbabwe even before they left Malawi. On what issue? MCP should find out.

Secondly, my eyebrows should not be stopped from being raised when another woman besides the First Lady dominates my President's space at anytime.

Is Jessie's closeness to the First Citizen for the past few days borne out of honest motives? 

Only Jessie knows.

AN ETERNAL THOUGHT TO MY RULERS: ARE WE FOR CONTINUITY OR CHAOS?

The 21st Century citizen, regardless of where he is, has become a very agitated animal in regards to how he is governed. The will of his heart and the power that democracy grants him are two ingredients that make his mind a free zone of thought and a hard tool to manipulate.

For a long time rulers world over have held on to a misconception that "you need to have a majority of the population disenfranchised to lose power".

To the contrary, history informs us otherwise.

For the State to be shaken, it does not take the whole population. It just requires a frustrated yet determined few to swing the pendulum in another direction.

Picture this.

Out of 25 million Malagasies, only 3,000 turned out to the streets of Antananarivo consistently for months to protest against Mark Ravalomanana's government. Despite ignoring the protests as irrelevant, the tide changed up until the military backed the city's mayor and former disk jockey, Andrei Rajoelina and made him President.

Similarly, of the 80 million Egyptians, only a persistent 200,000 who camped at Tahrir Square were enough to bring down Hosni Mubarak's five-decade rule.

Interestingly, even when the struggle is armed, things have taken a similar pattern.  

Fidel Castro had only 82 men to start a revolution while Yahya Jammeh only needed less that 20 of his close friends to plot a coup in Gambia. In leadership, numbers might not always be the holy grail.

Both scenarios of change should always put African leaders on watch for the growth of virtual and real social movements within the normal social order.

When African governments fail to create jobs for thousands of university and college graduates, a collective frustration is born and if not tamed it becomes the very benchmark from which society rises against its rulers. 

Wasn't it a Tunisian university-graduate turned vegetable-seller who set himself on fire and instantly ignited the Arab Spring?

Thus far, my fear for Malawi is that the more government fails to respond to the needs of the enlightened society, the more it sends a wrong signal across the board as this population remains crucial in shaping public opinion.

Better still, even the illiterate have become a conscious bloc on matters that affect their livelihoods. 

As such I advise our rulers against wasting time with politics many months after elections.

Those is government must start delivering now because not many within the general populace are avid activists and adherents of political structures. Millions are simply part of the constituency that forgets about politics once they cast their vote.

For this constituency all it wants is a government that creates a conducive environment for them to excel in education, businesses, health and social life among others.

Simply put; no Malawian went to the polls to see politicians fight for the next five years. People want development period.

Much as politicians always use their own mistakes to manipulate the common man, things might not always work in their favour as before.

Misfortunes like Cashgate should not be looked at as a battle of politicians rather a struggle between the elites and commoners. 

Sadly, we common people celebrate when political mafias shoot one another as they scramble for our hard-earned taxes. We cheer when elites fight in the courts of law in languages way beyond our comprehension. 

I have lived long enough in this world to see the rise and fall of strong regimes both home and abroad. It is my hope that any serving government looks at its population as the very core of its own survival.

If you reject the views and needs of common people, do not be surprised when the streets and squares of Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu are used as a last blow to your reign. 

Power at the top is a mystery. Real power rests with the people.

 

May God Bless Malawi always and keep it a land of good governance.

MALAWI POLICE HAS ITSELF TO BLAME FOR LOSING PRESIDENCY'S TRUST

News that President Peter Mutharika has hired 30 private personal guards has come with mixed reactions mainly because it changes the long-time usual way of doing things.

I will not try to delve much into the issue as it deals with security at the highest level of our Statehood though I have a rotten bone to pick with Lot Dzonzi's men and women.

Our men uniform (law enforcers) must be asking themselves why for the past three years they seem to have lost touch with the country's highest office. 

Speculations aside, it cannot be disputed that Malawi Police Service (MPS) nearly brought this country to a sorry standstill starting from 2009 under the leadership of one, Peter Mukhito, now serving as State House Chief of Staff.

At a time when the nation needed a professional police force, we ended up having a group of men in uniform also serving interests of a political party.

No wonder when President Bingu Wa Mutharika passed on, power failed to shift to President Joyce Banda smoothly because those we trusted at the top in the MPS had jobs to protect and personal interests to massage.

That was the moment the Service started losing grip in as far as their efficiency at the most top level is concerned.

In the follow up of such a transitional stand-off, we saw men of integrity like former Army Commander, General Odillo, rising to the occasion by ordering the Military Police a.k.a the Red Berets to take charge of security details for President Joyce Banda.

Subsequently, the ever-tough Red Berets became a main fixture in the security detail.

Reports within the circles of power had it that with the Red Berets in the house, some policemen just developed a negative vibe thus leaking any piece of information they came across (even a greeting they mistook for a Presidential order)

For those who had information within Plot 1 during Dr Joyce Banda's rule will agree with me that if there was a contingent that leaked information out willy-nilly, then police officers rank among the 'nudiest' suspects.

One day, a malfunctioning helicopter on a helipad within State House had its picture sent viral within minutes of the anomaly such that the President's delay to a public function became news for those with small minds always itching for sensation.

Sometimes, private (or secret meetings) were broadcasted online even before the first prayer was exhausted. Also chief among the suspects were the many men in uniform (or suits) who were seconded to a place of privilege to serve the Head of State.

Now the coming in of President Peter Mutharika has even further pushed the MPS one step away from the core as the new leader has settled for his own private guards.

In the old days, a large contingent of the 30 would have been dominated by trained policemen but alas, times have changed.

Two Presidents in a row now have had personalized arrangements departing from the long-time tradition.

Though we can sympathize with the MPS here that it is not fully responsible for some of its delinquent chaps, still this conduct has left a lot to be desired. 

Interestingly, most of the leaked information was going (or being sold) to the opposition including the now ruling DPP. As such the party knows what the weakest link at Plot 1 was.

My plea to the Inspector General is that they should regain the confidence of the Presidency sooner than later. Failing which will reduce the credibility of our Police to kindergarten levels.

Bring Back Our Police, the cry goes.

FEDERALISM IN MALAWI: PROPONENTS SIMPLY ASKING FOR ROTATING PRESIDENCY

As time progresses, calls for a Federal system of government are growing by day, more so for the past two months albeit with a very coincidental approach.

We are justified to question as to why people are calling for a federal system only after the much divisive elections? Recently, Justice Minister, Samuel Tembenu, labeled those who are propagating these calls as bad losers. 

The minister has a point as the first proponent of such a system were our brothers and sisters from the northern-region based political party, Alliance For Democracy (AFORD).

Yes coincidentally, the calls raised some questions as they were an immediate reaction to election results that sadly showed how as a country we are failing to move away from "ethnic politics"

Even Malawi Congress Party (MCP) President, Lazarus Chakwera, has encouraged exhaustive and extensive debate on the issue than just sweeping it under the carpet.

But wait a minute. Why are these calls mushrooming anyway? 

Surely it is about power and resources, that we cannot deny. I think these are laudable and credible justifications by those itching for Federalism. Nothing wrong with that.

Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, once said " A normal sensible person will wait for his turn if he is sure that the shares will go round; if not, he might start a scramble"

Other tribes and ethnic groups are also feeling entitled to the control of national resources. Be well reminded that those who control the state have the power to determine 

"who gets rich and who gets poor"

"Who produces what and where"

Who sells what, how and where"

And worse still,

"who suffers from what disease and where they receive their treatment"

Once you have State power, you have the key. No wonder elections have become one event we cannot do without. Everybody wants power and because we still think along tribal lines, then our tribal inclinations make us urge for power within tribal hands.

My underlying question is, "Are people really asking for Federalism as it is or a rotating Presidency? For the fact that these cries are coming at the back of elections, I think people are asking for the latter.

People know that those who have the Presidency can call the shots anytime, anyhow, especially on resources and allocation of development. Does it surprise you how a University which was earmarked for Lilongwe ended up on a personal garden in Thyolo?

In his book "POISONED WELLS, The Dirty Politics of African Oil", Nicholas Shaxson argues that resources (especially minerals, oils and gas) divide citizens against one another.

I agree with Shaxton when I analyse the situation here at home in the wake of vast mineral and oil potential under our own feet. Doesn't it make sense that calls for Federalism are coming first from the North? Isn't that the region where mineral exploitation has taken a huge leap compared to all the regions?

Furthermore, the country's first serious and attractive mine investment Kayerekera Uranium Mine is in Karonga. Despite the closure chances are that it might be reopened when other investors find it fit depending on uranium's prices on world market.

Coincidentally, it is also the Northern part of Lake Malawi might experience oil and gas explorations first after studies proved availability of these up there.

Just as is the case with people of the Niger Delta in Nigeria or inhabitants of Principe Island in Sao Tome en Principe, Malawi's Northerners are getting worried that their region is a bedrock of precious underground commodities yet revenue from these is used to develop other places more than their own.

 

So, what would be the best solution to this? 

Some three years ago during a public debate at Chancellor College, Peter Mutharika (now President) touched on this pertinent issue of rotating the Presidency among the regions and suggested that Malawi should look into this possibility as a way of building national cohesion.

May be at the rate we are going, rotating the Presidency can be a better option. As Chinua Achebe puts it, for those who think their turn is delaying, a scramble becomes an option.

This line of thinking has been tested and it works. More so, it cuts across many areas of life not only politics. 

Have you ever wondered why even the Football World Cup changed it's format from general to continental bidding? It was all to do with continents who thought their time might not come with the status quo and they simply expression their dissatisfaction louder.

The worst thing current rulers can do is close their ears to these cries, that will only aggravate the problem.

I have no problem who rules Malawi as long as they put the poor majority at the centre of their policies. 

However, if calls for change start filtering through, it is only wise to give an ear.