Ruling DPP wages war against activists and the media

When Malawi President Peter Mutharika turned his ire on the media and activists together with his press officer Gerald Viola, it was all not enough and it seems the war is overflowing to the Ministers now with a recent verbal attack on Nation Publications Limited (NPL) journalist by a cabinet Minister.

Report Malawi24 has show that NPL Chief Bureau in the North, James Chavula has succumbed to threats from Minister of Sports and Culture Grace ‘Obama’ Chiumia after the journo revealed about the shame the Minister wore after being booed  at a Gonapamuhanya Festival in Rumphi on Saturday.

An article that Chavula carried exposed how Chiumia had been rejected by an audience after she trashed Speaker of Parliament Richard Msowoya for asking leaders to equally treat people, a thing which the Sports Minister blasted, to the boos of the audience.

Chavula wrote on his Facebook account about the whole ordeal whilc citing he is not shaken at all.

“She (Chiumia) reckons the backlash emanated from People’s Party supporters, but the truth is that the locals refused to glorify her miscalculated utterances to discredit the speaker for urging leaders against ranting and insulting their people. She opines the booing might as well be a Malawi Congress Party job, but this does not glorify her angry retort that “there were no jeers at Gonapamuhanya.”

Surprisingly, it has pleased honorable minister to threaten me, saying: “Uwona tsoka; zimene wachitazi uwona.”

“This is a case in which Minister Obama called me using a private-number phone today around 10am, calling me “stupid”, “nonsense”, “corrupt” and “very stupid”.

“I asked the caller to introduce herself first or call me on her unmasked number for us to sort out her problem amicably as adults. In my world, communication is not a one-way process like rain falling from above, but two-way traffic. It is never complete until the sender of the message gives the recipient the liberty, means and ways to offer feedback when necessary.

But the minister is not your ideal communicator. Her mouth stinks. It did. She continued to utter expletives not befitting her honorable status for almost a minute until she saw it fit to cut the line.
Threats and insults are no mark of honor in anybody’s book. They are vile whether the speaker is a minister, a journalist or a nameless villager.” Chavula wrote.

This comes fresh in the heels of outbursts that Mutharika sent to the media and activists as well the opposition on his return from the United Nations General Summit (UNGA) where the three attacked him for taking a 115 delegation.

Mutharika has since been asked to step down for failing the nation and only ‘wasting time’ to attack his critics instead of doing core jobs his office may require him to do.

As it stands, the Malawi leader remains adamant he will not step down citing the reasons from his critics are merely out of malice and not constructive as he deemed them.