Light talk on Nyasa: The dictator that Chakwera is becoming

By now, believe you me, our HI5 and would-be servant leader that was President Dr Lazarus Chakwera—prior and after the 2019 tippexed elections—would have already made a decision, or at least said something, on whether and when he and his chief secretary to government Zangazanga Chikhosi are going to settle legal costs following their puerile decision in the firing of MEC commissioners Linda Kunje and Jean Mathanga.

Well, we must as well forget it; for that is now sticking in us as some far-fetched idea. Quite unexpected of a man who preached people power and fervently sold us his unmistakable hate for executive arrogance which seemed to have been running in the DNA of his predecessor-party the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

This time last year, Chakwera would have been somewhere in the streets of our dusty Lilongwe taking part in some mighty HRDC orchestrated protests or at some HI5 rally in Mzuzu or Blantyre or Karonga narrating to us—impassionately—of the sweet things that awaited us in Canaan once we crossed the Red Sea that was DPP.

Thanks to us all, and thanks to the old [not new] Comrade Timothy Mtambo, Gift Trapence and HRDC, we crossed the Red Sea that was the DPP. For without us all, believe you me, the DPP and our good’ol Professor Peter Mutharika would still be at the helm, at Plot No. 1 today, Covid-19gating more of our taxes. The Canaan our Moses (read Chakwera) promised, it seems, was a scam and that is quite fretting.

Former President Bakili Muluzi once said Malawians forget easily and quickly; he was right. But trust me, Chakwera is worse. After all, they say, power corrupts. And, it is just a matter of time before more power gets imbued in President Chakwera’s blood and we begin gnashing and grinding our teeth in this Canaan.

Sadly, it seems people have started losing it and are starting to have numerable doubts on whether President Chakwera’s Americanized promises of 2019 and 2020 are going to see the light of the day. It is slowly but steadily dawning on Malawians that Chakwera is, after all, not the messiah they visualised not long ago but rather another of our politicians with a myriad of lies reverberating in his DNA. I will, of course, not mention of how he took all of us Malawians for fools and told us he would in 60 days do a check of his initial Lilongwe-cabinet and appoint another when he knew he was too wobble to preform such a task.

Except for the good harvest this year, thanks to the good Lord for the good rains and for the Bingu wa Mutharika-inspired Affordable Input Programme (AIP), there is really nothing much to say about Chakwera’s sinking ship that is his leadership. The problem is that it seems Chakwera who brags of always keeping his ears to the ground for rapid response in as far as issues concerning Malawians is concerned, is not listening at all. His ears, all of a sudden, are being blocked by some seemingly good measure of executive arrogance.

And it is not just him. This arrogance is, surprisingly, running across his ranch. Is it not surprising that, even our man Brian Banda, the loudmouth, keeps on asking for more and more time to comment on his boss’ uninspiring hokum before bombarding us with press statements weaved with too much jargon to communicate too little sense?

Chakwera and company must begin mending their ways now before they unceremoniously end their days should they not pay attention to this candid advice. After all, they will have no one to blame should they be kicked out at Plot No. 1. The President must begin to listen. The idea of him Zangazanga Chikhosi to go ahead and fire MEC commissioners Linda Kunje and Jean Mathanga even after Attorney General Chikosa Silungwe advised against it was, to say the least, ridiculous and first class executive arrogance.

It is rather ill-fated that the President has started rendering deaf ears to his own. Do they not say that the voice of people is the voice of God. Why is Chakwera so loudly silent on Chikumbutso Mtumodzi when he knows pretty well of his sins? How could President Chakwera allow his chief secretary to fire 12 principal secretaries and expect things to run smoothly?

President Chakwera must quickly let go the deeply rooted MCP conservativism in him and start listening, start getting more and more liberal especially in this Facebook and WhatsApp generation. He must go back to his HI5 notes and start walking the talk; for right now, Chakwera has become too cold to handle or too hot to hold. Either way, it is dangerous for him—and us all.

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