Self-acclaimed President of Mulanje and Thyolo districts which are said to be no longer a part of Malawi, Vincent Wandale, has been denied bail by the Blantyre Magistrate Court following his arrest in Lilongwe over the weekend.
Wandale who leads the Peoples Land Organization (PRO) has since been charged with four counts.
The charges are: Conspiracy to commit a misdemeanour; Unauthorized use of land; Inciting violence and Criminal trespassing.
The case continues on Thursday and Wandale has been put on remand at Chichiri Prison.
Wandale was netted by Police over the weekend days after he promised to wage war against Malawi for stopping people of Mulanje and Thyolo from grabbing land belonging to estates.
Wandale who declared himself leader of African Traditionalist Republic of Thyolo and Mulanje (MUST) has been in the forefront of agitating for a secession of the two districts from Malawi over claims that the Malawi government did not want to give them land that belongs to them and was stolen away by colonial settlers.
Police also arrested 22 members of Wandale’s organisation for encroaching on private land after the people shared among themselves land belonging to Conforzi Estate in Thyolo district.
A fracas ensued at the land distribution exercise and Wandale was arrested.
After the fracas, government advised people of the two districts to stop being misled by Wandale saying he is being guided by his own political agenda.
PLO has been calling on the Malawi government to rule that all the companies which own estates in the districts got them illegally and that tea estates which are not being used should be shared to people who do not have land for cultivation.
However, government has been silent on the matter since last year.
But according to Wandale, it is not wrong for someone to make calls for secession and the two districts have borrowed a leaf from Kosovo which seceded from Serbia in February 2008 as the Republic of Kosovo.
