Joyce Banda should shut up!

I wish the media could give Joyce Banda a blackout, but they want to sell papers and hardly remind people how evil Joyce Banda was for Malawi (I supported Joyce Banda until I realised, I was pitching my tent on a wrong field).

As Malawi president, Joyce Banda literally destroyed this great nation, the only place some of us call Home! Now, without being ashamed, she is trying to make herself useful (not for the people of Malawi who she betrayed, but for the West who are so daft that they can believe easily what comes from her lying and thieving mouth).

In addition to the K24 billion that was stolen, not only by senior government officials very close to her but also senior members of her political party, a German funded auditing established that over K0.5 trillion was uncounted for during the 2 years Joyce Banda was president.

Mrs. Banda has also been implicated by both government and her Peoples Party’s senior officials (Leonard Kalonga & Oswald Lutepo) that they were just used as conduit to steal public funds to finance Joyce Banda’s presidential campaign in the previous elections.

Her defense has been that these people were forced by the current regime to implicate her! This is the only way out for her so she finds refuge wherever she has been exiling herself for close to two years. She is playing the political-persecution game because she knows that is the only card the West can easily embrace! But should we just rule out any possible credibility in allegations by these officers? What if there is some sense of validity and indeed Joyce Banda was involved? Why can’t she come home and exonerate herself?

She says she is insecure. Joyce Banda played this same card during the Bingu wa Mutharika regime. She said there was a plot to have her murdered. Yet, when she was president, she never told the nation or put up a commission to bring to light who had plotted to have her nabbed. But the claims that there was an attempt by the then regime worked to her advantage! Now, she thinks she can reuse and recycle the same card. Of course not for Malawians, but for her Western audience who have believed without questions that Joyce Banda lost because she was fighting corruption. Why would Malawians kick out a person who is fighting corruption?

Remember, it is this same Joyce Banda who told the West a highly believable lie that she sold a presidential jet to feed poor Malawians. “I am used to hitch-hiking!” she said!

Truth be told, the money from the presidential jet vanished into thin air and no one knows truthfully where the money went. No one poor Malawian was ever given a bowl of Phala purchased from the finances that were realised from selling the jet. Should we then believe what Joyce Banda is telling us that there is a political persecution plot against her and her family? No!! We are not stupid like some Western governments and organisations.

As a cunning human being, Joyce Banda will play any tune to justify why she needs to extend her self-imposed exile. She claimed that this government is not willing to provide her with a retirement home. I suggest she relocate to Chintheche where she has a mansion or even in Zomba, her home!

Malawi is a democratic nation. Once settling either in Chintheche or Zomba, she can then drag this government to court for failing to meet demands stipulated within her retirement package. I don’t think Issuing emotive press statements will ever work.

I also find it outrageous that Joyce Banda is losing her sleep over claims that her son Geoffrey Kachale is on the list of a group who are putting pressure on this regime. Of course, it is inevitable that Peter Mutharika (who is as visionless on how to develop Malawi just like Joyce Banda when she was leader) will perceive such pressure groups as efforts to make the country ungovernable for him.

One should rejoice and welcome Mr. Kachale’;s efforts to set up a politically motivated group should such claims be true because Malawi picked democracy over dictatorship in 1993. Should government be aware of that pressure group, then that’s also acceptable. Neither government nor Joyce Banda should waste Malawians’ precious time over this; and neither should the two be losing sleep over this matter.

I personally worked with Geoffrey Kachale in setting up the Orange Movement that sprung into three People’s Party youth wings. He was of course an entrepreneur then just as Joyce Banda claims. But like any Malawian, Kachale has also his political interest. What I mean here is Joyce Banda should not bring his son in this because Geoffrey Kachale has always been involved in politics and played a significant role in putting pressure on Bingu wa Mutharika then; and there is nothing wrong should he rediscover his calling which he lost after the 5th of April.

It is without denying that things are currently not well. To provide checks and balances to this government, Malawi needs everyone including Geofrey Kachale! There is nothing illegal in this and this is what Joyce Bandsa should have emphasised rather than brandishing her son as a saint who has drifted farther away from the shore where his mother’s ship is anchored! Like any Malawian, be it an entrepreneur or not, it is expected of Geoffrey Kachale to exercise his political rights as stipulated within Constitutional provisions! He can organise demonstrations, set up pressure groups or anything that is legal!

So if Joyce Banda want to talk about her son being in danger because he is organising a revolt against some injustices currently underway, she should be proud of that. And she has to be bold and tell the current regime: Geoffrey Kachale has every right to start a pressure group (that he did not want to be linked with PP!)

My message is Joyce Banda should just come home without trying to find scapegoats why she is still in her exile. She needs to come home and tell Malawians why K553 billion was uncounted for under her watch in addition to clearing her name which has been muddled in the cashgate scandal by people who donated and bankrolled her party. She can even drag them to court to defamation for implicating her in a very serious crime.

*Views in this article are those of the author and not Malawi24. Email articles for publication to editor@malawi24.com