Sincere apologies for missing an entry last week. Please take note that I now have a mechanism in place to spare you from reading recycled pieces.
Talking of recycling, it is enough that the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and United Transformational Movement (UTM) have fully embraced the counterproductive art of recycling cheap political harlots.
You and I should spurn such behaviour, and in no sphere of our lives should we sink so low as to wallow with unprincipled swine. You can’t swim with pigs and expect to smell as if you are wearing Hugo Boss perfume. No. It never happens. You wallow with pigs, you end up stinking like one.
The other day, President Lazarus Chakwera braved and defied Covid19 to give late Mayi Dinala a befitting funeral for her unprecedented loyalty to her party.
The very next day, half his cabinet was someplace else, grinning from ear to ear while welcoming political harlots whose nomadic behaviour late Mayi Dinala disliked.
Do you see the irony?
Other than decadence, what do these pimps hope to get from political prostitutes?
Anyway, let us leave prostitutes and their pimps to their own.
I spent the past weeks scrutinising the current leadership. I was not necessarily looking at what we are intended to see, no. I went behind the scenes to see the things we are not supposed to see and hear the things we are not supposed to hear.
You see Blues’ Orators, barely three months have elapsed from when we had a president we did not have.
In theory, we had someone. He would occasionally hold public functions. Deliver a speech here. Lay a foundation stone there. Regale us about red wine and prostitutes when he so wished. All the while; State Media, ministers and party hacks would be addressing him as “His Excellency”.
But now that push has come to shove, it is clear that the pretender was not in charge and there can only be one explanation from two possibilities.
Either he is incredibly good at playing a buffoon to hoodwink us, earn our sympathy and hence evade the punishment for criminal negligence.
Or, he is the most useless person whose only usefulness is serving as a horrible example.
Whichever is the case, the dude had little or no clue of the goings-on in Sanjika and in Malawi.
Now, since a man bitten once by a snake forever fears ropes; I will never allow myself to be fooled like that again.
Never again.
That is why I took it upon myself to snoop on developments and relationships on plot numbers one and two.
The good news is that the tag-team partnership between Lazarus Chakwera and Saulos Chilima, this far, is working well.
“This far” being the operative phrase, let us not celebrate too early.
If you rewind the clock back to the equivalent time in 2014, Mutharika and Chilima’s relationship was still intact. In fact, Chilima was then leading the all-important Reform Initiative. Their relationship was thriving.
Unknown to us, people were working hard to ram a wedge between Chilima and Mutharika and with time, they succeeded.
With history’s predisposition to repeating itself, all Malawians of goodwill should be watching out for subversive elements desirous of derailing the Chakwera-Chilima partnership.
You see, while we should not presume all State Residence workers to have Chisale’s genes, we should not – not even for a single moment – believe they are incapable of divisive thoughts and actions.
What’s more, even as we question the efficacy of the so-called presidential advisors, we should never – based on the success the previous cohort had in undermining the office of the vice president – underestimate the havoc they can wreak.
Assuming those plotting how to drive Chakwera and Chilima are reading this, they know what I am talking about.
In their shoes, I would change course because Malawians are liking the Chakwera-Chilima partnership.
Further, Malawians know that the only people losing sleep over the Chakwera-Chilima partnership are those who want to programme Chakwera into “APM Version 2.0”. Who needs another “APM”?
In Chakwera’s shoes, I would be wary of suggestions that I should follow Mutharika’s disastrous footsteps in my relationship with the Vice President or that I should dump the Tonse Alliance partners as is being suggested by some.
Let me repeat: this far, the Chakwera-Chilima partnership is working very well for Malawi. A few areas need sprucing up, for example, accelerating the pace of decision-making; but overall things look good.
Check this: while Chakwera is effective at soothing impatient souls with his confident eloquence; Chilima – with his hands-on change-or-be-changed approach when dealing with a clueless minister or a recalcitrant head of a statutory body – is busy ploughing elsewhere.
Hence, for the first time in our history, we have a presidency that is actually working for us and not vice versa.
End this partnership and chaos, demonstrations and what have you will reign once more due to abuse of Account Number One which some hyenas close to the powers-that-be are eyeing.
While this might sound Greek to some and I might as well be “speaking in tongues” to others; those with ears are hearing.
I will repeat this: not everyone in the corridors of power wishes Malawi well.
On a sad note, this past week has ended without a single arrest of note. Some nondescript shattered accountants, yes; but not those who were actually pulling the strings.
Again, apart from Chisale’s incessant court appearances, there was no progress on significant cases.
Muluzi’s MK1.7 billion case, no progress. Mpingajira’s judge-bribing attempt case, zero progress. Arrests in the coal mine billions, nothing. Progress on dubious transactions and cash drain at MRA, zero.
I could go on and on.
This loss of momentum is worrisome. We all witnessed the plunder of Government Account Number One and other public resources.
If investigations are stalling, what is causing the delay?
Human resources? Hire more people. Isn’t this what job creation is all about?
Leadership at ACB? The other day I mentioned Z Allan Ntata. Others are talking about John Gift Mwakhwawa etc.
Get them asap.
Have prosecutors been outnumbered by suspects?
Hire private firms and do everything you can but for Christ sake wrap up the investigations, finalise the work in progress, initiate the new cases, lock up all low lives and give me the keys and I will happily throw them into Chingwe‘s Hole.
The Tonse Alliance promised as much, and we expect this promise to be delivered.
Or is political will already waning? This would be a pity.
While I am at it, let me put it in black and white that making a deal with Mutharika or his family or associates instead of prosecuting them, IF they deserve prosecution, will be frowned upon not only by prospective investors but also by Malawians.
If, as we are hearing, this government is pondering betraying Malawians by making a deal with Peter Mutharika, it will surely rue the day it decided to go down this path.
Make no mistake about it; there should be no deals. There should be no golden parachutes. And the revolving doors must stop.
Chakwera-Chilima, please, desist from taking Malawians for fools.
Others tried, it didn’t end well.
