Ruthless ‘war’ rages at Malawi State House: Presidential aide Chisale exposed by rival camp

The shadow boxing currently raging in the corridors of State House appears to be gathering speed and getting dirtier by the day, sources habe  confirmed to Nyasa Times that there are practically two opposing camps striving to outdo each other for the attention of President Peter Mutharika, in a ‘battle’ that is increasingly proving gruesome and ruthless.

Mutharika’s private bodyguard and director of State House security, Norman Paulos Chisale is said to be commandeering one camp while the other is the camp that has shifted its loyalty to Agriculture Minister George Chaponda, who is  reportedly repositioning himself to be successor of Mutharika.

The bone of contention is the scramble for the President’s attention since Ben Phiri left State House  as Mutharika’s  special advisor as Mutharika has been placing more trust in his personal bodyguard, Chisale, and the Director of State Residences, Peter Mukhito, whom he considers most trusted, loyal, professional and dedicated to work.

“It is Chisale and Mukhito  who President Mutharika trusts most now. The President has known a lot of rotten deals happening in government through Chisale and Mukhito; they are two officers he now trusts most. Actually, the President can never go out of State House if Chisale is not around,” a source said.

According to the source, the anti-Chisale camp, which includes Safe Motherhood coordinator, Chimwemwe Mazabuko Chipungu, Chaponda and beleaguered Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) director Lucas Kondowe, has been severely threatened and riled by the recent turn of events and has vowed to ‘finish off’ Chisale and Mukhito through unorthodox means.

“This camp has assembled an army of ‘mercenaries’ including some State House employees to wage a smear campaign against the beloved officers, especially Chisale, in the social media. The group is creating fake social media profiles and using online publications to publish cooked-up stories with a lot of mud thrown at Chisale including criminal allegations, exaggerating his personal wealth and other serious false stories to destroy his character and ‘extract’ him from Mutharika,” claimed the source.

“Their aim is to get rid of Chisale and Mukhito and disarm Mutharika so that he solely relies on them They want to control the President so that their dubious deals remain unexposed,” the source added.

According to the source, the other camp has even started brandishing the tribal card, and is openly propagating to edge Chisale out because he is not from the Lhomwe belt. They do not want a Ngoni, Chewa, Tumbuka or any other tribe to be close to Mutharika except Lhomwes. Chisale is a Ngoni from Ntcheu.

According to the source, recent allegations on the social media linking Chisale to the brutal murder of ACB director, Issa Njaunju, is one classic example of this enterprise’s desperate attempts to finish him (Chisale) and wrestle back control of State House politics.

“The good thing is that President Mutharika now knows what is happening and can see through the whole scheme for what it is. President Mutharika is now painfully aware that some of his aide have been extorting money from the Indian business community in exchange for presidential appointments and lucrative government contracts,” the reliable sources said.

This is not the first time for State House ‘civil war’ as  former Director of Communications at State House, Bright Malopa, expressed his misgivings to Mutharika over  his aides tendency of ‘auctioning’ presidential appointments to Malawians of Asian origins.

Malopa was eventually elbowed out of State House and is now warehoused at Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA).

The ‘pay –to- have-an-audience with Mutharika saga also saw the firing of former Aide-de-camp for Mutharika, Fostino Gunda Phiri, allegedly for fixing an appointment that one powerful aide had not sanctioned.

The aides have also made sure Mutharika’s close relatives are systematically elbowed out of the system, and that no one from the President’s family is close enough to witness the Mafia-like moves of self-enrichment.

Chimwemwe Kajawo, nephew to Mutharika, is the notable victim of the carefully crafted scheme of creating false stories to make others look bad in the eyes of the President. He was thrown out of State House and has since been redeployed to Office of President and Cabinet.