Chakwera’s greatest achievement

President Lazarus Chakwera is a great achiever. The most noticeable achievement is his call for Malawians to sing all the three verses of our National Anthem.

This is a greatly noticeable achievement, what with the President’s numerous engagements that are aired live on MBC-TV. You can throw yourself in the lake if you think some of the engagements are a worst of time and resources as top government officials are obliged to leave their duty stations and be present. The more engagements they attend, the greater their chances to memorise all the three verses of the National Anthem!

At times, you really ask yourself the necessity in the police or army brass bands to play all the three verses of the anthem. My crude tonic sofa sheet music reading shows that one stanza since all the other stanzas follow the same notations without the lyrics!

Just off the head, the singing or playing of the three verses of the National Anthem has been even more noticeable this past week as the President was busy going about his ‘duties’. We heard it as he left at dawn for Lusaka for a Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa summit in Lusaka, Zambia. We heard it again when he returned home in the evening.

Never mind if you missed how important the summit that happened in between the two anthems was.

Then, we heard the anthem again at the commissioning of officer cadets at the Malawi Armed Forces College (Mafco) in Salima. Without undermining the importance of commissioning the great men in uniform, who are expected to serve diligently in their respective armies, for some of us, this was just another great opportunity to listen to the brass band playing the three verses of God Bless Malawi. Nothing more.

While we were still thinking we had heard the anthem more than enough, blimey, the President was at the Bingu International Convention Centre to open the two-day conference on separation of powers. Not only open, but also close a conference to discuss the three arms of government whose attendees were, I am sure, already aware of the doctrine and its spirit and how important it is to avoid the tyranny of the majority while at the same time checking abuse of office.

Please note, we sang the three verses during the opening and closing of that conference.

Don’t bat your eyelids. When the conference was closed, the three verses were back on our lips the following day as Chakwera opened a global leadership summit at the Bicc.

From my small cubicle, watching the proceedings during the opening ceremony, the only thing worth noting was the singing of the three verses of the Malawi National Anthem. What, really, was the take-home message from that summit? Without being a bigot or irreligious, the whole opening ceremony appeared to be a prayer session.

Now, my worry is that not only were the President and his vice Saulos Chilima and top government officials busy on a Wednesday morning watching and listening to sermons while the country is running out of control.

The country is running out of control. A country is out of control when the leader is acting nonchalant when those under him are entering into murky deals that are tainting his image night and day. How did we end up with that K128 billion fertiliser deal with the Romanian East Bridge Estate, that is basically a pharmaceuticals dealer? And that coming just after the Chakwera administration went into another botched fertiliser deal with a butchery in the United Kingdom?

To add sweet salt to the wound, Chakwera said the whole idea of him being in the driver’s seat is all wrong. He is only a traffic police officer, only controlling the traffic but not really at the steering wheel to hoot and apply the brakes when things go wrong.

The traffic police analog is somewhat apt, especially when you think that some traffic police officers are on the road to make a buck or two than protect road users from accidents. Like leader of opposition Kondwani Nankhumwa (he has his own issues) put it, Chakwera should be reminded about what he said in 2020 that he would neither run nor ‘walk’ this country, he would fly it!

Now, for a fact, some traffic police officers can scarcely round-the-bout accordingly, neither would they know how to park a car in reverse.

Chakwera is right. He is like a traffic police officer.

While we were singing the three verses of the National Anthem, the water boards were busy raising water tarrifs. Escom, forget the blackouts that are back, was also proposing hikes.

And then, the funniest of all: Illovo Sugar was meeting Chakwera’s ministers with the possibility of reducing the price of sugar after threats that government would consider allowing other players to import sugar. Now, that shows us one thing: Illovo Sugar wants to continue dominating the market and make Malawians pay through the nose with their obscene pricing.

As we wait for the singing of the three verses of the National Anthem, may be Chakwera can move some of his lieutenants to tone down in their colossal pilferage of the public coffers.