Ralph has always been a mafia

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Ralph Kasambara

A social commentator has described the convicted former justice minister Ralph Kasambara as a mafia who disguised his personal battles as national battles.

In a Facebook Post, Dave Namusanya using an account name of Mankhokwe Namusanya, referred to history in which Kasambara was arrested for assault.

We publish his opinion verbatim:

_In 2012, when Ralph was arrested for assault, we went to town claiming it was political victimisation._

Assaulted by Ralph Kasambara
Men assaulted by Ralph Kasambara

_It really was a grey area. Mutharika was at a height of what we fashionably call a dictatorship. Ralph was on the other hand a part of what we also fashionably call a civil society. A man ready to fight the ‘tin-pot dictator’, as he had called Bingu then, without minding the consequences._

_I remember when he was released from Chichiri Prison where he had been remanded, a convoy nearly brought Blantyre to a standstill as cars honked to his freedom. His freedom was equated to a symbolism of a fall of dictatorship._

_All the claims by Bingu that Ralph ‘is a mafia’ were rubbished and ignored. He was a Saint and, trust me, if Bingu had lived longer there would have had been a pub somewhere labelled Saint Ralph. And, we would have had been congregating there to celebrate the bravery of Saint Ralph._

Ralph Kasambara
Ralph Kasambara :The mafia in suit

_Fast forward to a few years ahead: the ‘Saint-Mafia’ gets convicted for conspiracy to murder, his accomplice in his earlier assault charge we all dismissed (and for which he gave himself a hefty compensation) is on the run having had gunned down an ‘unruly’ lorry driver in Manja township in broad daylight._

_Which should really implore us to think: are the people who always fight politicians good people or usually it is because they also want to cover their dealings?_

_Can it be that, then and now, we were (are) busy championing personal fights that come in the disguise of national causes?_

_What when a Politician gets arrested, have we seen how we rise up in arms to defend that politician and claim all that arrest is ‘political persecution’?_

_Maybe it is time we started thinking hard on some of these things, just maybe.