Resign as Speaker or MCP veep, Malawi Muslims tell Msowoya

Islam Commission for Justice and Freedom, a social arm of Islam has challenged Speaker of National Assembly Richard Msowoya to resign as Speaker or Malawi Congress Party (MCP) vice presidency saying he cannot combine the two positions following recent events.

Chairman of the organisation Shaibu Ajassi said Wednesday in Blantyre that Msowoya had compromised his position by providing his official parliamentary vehicle to whisk away MCP publicity secretary Jessie Kabwila from police last week who wanted to arrest her over sedition charges.

“The position of Speaker needs someone who is impartial. The speaker is not for Honourable Jessie Kabwila alone but for all Malawians. What he did is uncalled for,” said Ajassi whose organisation rarely comments on social, economic or political issues.

Ajassi however has not said what will happen if Msowoya fails to step down either as speaker or MCP vice president.

In an earlier interview, however, Msowoya said he did not know that his official vehicle was used to whisk away Kabwila from police.

He said at the said time, he was in parliament presiding over the same debate.

The police managed to arrest Kabwila at the gates of German embassy in Lilongwe which is a stone`s throw from parliament building where the law enforcers erected an ad hock roadblock in order to arrest Kabwila and another legislator Peter Chakwantha of the MCP.

Police Inspector General Lexter Kachama ruled out the police arresting Msowoya for shielding Kabwila from law enforcers.

He said although Msowoya broke the law, he was free.

Kabwila remains unrepentant saying the Whatsapp messages which the police are basing their sedition charges cannot make the government fall, he added the government is falling on its own due to gross incompetence of its leaders