Mutharika ‘trapped in Mapwevupwevu’: Malawi News columnist hits President over eat-mice

President Peter Mutharika has again come under criticism  for being  out of touch and trapped in wealth – eating  lavishly (mapwepwevu) and  saying people should eat mice to cope with a nationwide food crisis.

Mutharika,  who prides himself of  being stinking rich, courted controversy  when told hungry Malawians to eat mice  in a bid to curb the scourge of hunger that had hit the nation.

And influential newspaper columnist George Kasakura writing on his ‘Hitting the Nail’ in Malawi News of July 2, 2016 says if President Mutharika thinks the Malawian people’s misery due to lack of food can become fodder for his “ribald jokes,” then it is yet another example of how the Head of State has become “insulated” to problems that are confronting the nation.

He writes: “It is cruel to joke with people that are starring into the jaws of death because they have no food more especially when the so called jokes have got something to do with their plight.

“It is unbridled lack of sensitivity that Malawians expect of their leaders and it is plainly wrong.”

Government spokesperson Patricia Kaliati in an attempt to put a possitive spin, said President Mutharika was simply cracking a joke.

Kaliati, who is also Minister of Infomation , said the criticism following Mutharika’s  utterances could only be described as “thoughtless”.

But  Kasakura, the Malawi News columnist, who is also Editor-In-Chief for the paper, noted that the spin by Kaliati shows that both the President and his PR team” do not get it.”

He writes that the problem  is “ insulation from the problems that are confronting Malawians everyday that the President and his handlers are suffering from.”

Adding: “That is why they have the audacity to proscribe petty solutions to the ills and when confronted, they shamelessly say it was the President’s sense of humour that was at work.

“In any case, let them not make Malawians commit the same mistake they are committing by making them laugh. Since when has the President developed any sense of humour?”

The columnist pointed out that it is common knowledge that humour is not the strength of President Mutharika.

He stated that Malawi will not have another Bakili Muluz  (who governed Malawi from 1994 to 2004) whose public jokes still tickle our fancy until today.

Hitting the nail, the columnist stated that “it is plainly wrong to joke about poor people who do not know where their next meal will come from about their plight.”

It is insulting their dignity, he stressed

As a matter of fact, the writer drives home the truth for the President that 8.4 million Malawian – almost half the country’s population – are on the brink of starvation.

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