Mutharika inspires on positive mindest: ‘Malawi is a land of many fortunes’

President Peter Mutharika rallied the people of Malawi to shed off negative mindset for themselves and their country and, instead, learn to look at Malawi’s challenges as opportunities to create wealth.

President Mutharika said this on Tuesday  when he addressed a rally at Goliati Primary School ground in Thyolo after presiding over the first ever graduation ceremony at the Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST).

Throughout his Malawi’s leadership, Mutharika has spoken movingly about a negative mindset as a major factor leading to poverty of the people in Malawi.

It was the same message he delivered in his address at the graduation and maintained this at the rally.

“Our poverty is not a result of lacking resources,” said the President. “Our poverty results from the way we think as a nation. Our poverty begins with our mindset.”

In a fitting illustration, President Mutharika said foreigners have come to this country, exploited the opportunities (which Malawians decry as problems) and made money for themselves –while Malawians “can’t afford to buy even a bicycle.”

The President spoke on dependence and people’s obsession with negativity as factors leading to poverty among Malawians while the nation has resources to get people out of poverty.

“Let us stop thinking that someone will come from somewhere to create fortunes for us. We are the creators of our fortunes. And Malawi is a land of many fortunes. It all depends on whether you choose to see the positive side or the negative side of this country,” he said.

At the Goliati rally, Mutharika said government is aware that a number of households are experiencing food shortages and that he has since directed the Vice President who is also the Minister of Disaster Management Affairs, Everton Chimulirenji to address the issue with urgency.

Mutharika also said his administration is geared to continue initiating different developmental programs to grow the country’s economy.

“I have developed a six-point strategic plan which focuses on water accessibility, health facilities, good road network and school infrastructures, among others, to contribute positively to all sectors of the economy.

“As a preamble, I plan to construct a secondary school at Goliati. In addition, I also intend to build a community technical college to ensure that young people have access to technical and vocational skills to improve their livelihoods and the nation at large,” he said.

Mutharika, therefore, called for unity of purpose to ensure that the planned projects materialize for the betterment of Malawians.

He also urged Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) followers to start consolidating the party at all levels in preparation for 2024 general elections.

“During the 2019 elections, many people voted for the DPP. Suffice to mention that Thyolo gave me 99 percent of the votes. As such, it is high time we started rebuilding the party so that come 2024, DPP gets 100 or 101 percent of the votes,” he said.

During his speech at the graduation,  Mutharika challenged Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST), a brainchild of his brother, former president Bingu wa Mutharika,  to live up to its founding principles to cultivate the spirit of innovation, self-dependence, self-belief and national pride.

“It is the job of the University to teach a nation which way to think and to change a national mindset. It should be the mission of the University to wage a crusade against a negative mindset,” said President Mutharika in a speech titled ‘The spirit of the Malawi we want.’

He urged the first class of graduating students at the University to go out and be problem solvers.

“You are going out as creators of solutions. You are the very spirit of this University. You are the spirit of the new Malawi we want – a nation of innovators,” said the President, who is chancellor of the university.

In his address on Tuesday, the President echoed what he had said at the University in December 2016 when he was inaugurated as Chancellor of the University.

Then President Mutharika said, Malawians should desist from spending “precious time listening to the wrong voices who want us to believe that we are failures”.

“Let us stop feeling sorry for ourselves, and instead we must grow the nerve to believe that we are capable of achieving great things,” he said in 2016.

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