Dear Judge Mbadwa,
Seasons’ greetings to the most credible and independent court in the land, the People’s Tribunal and its ever-shrinking family of trustworthy court users.
Nyasaland has always been resilient, but these past few months under Mapuya’s People’s Demagogic Party (PDP) have tested that resilience in delightfully inventive ways.
It has been a mixed bag of Christmas “gifts.” I am told fuel supplies have steadied, which is certainly something to applaud provided one has the money to buy a litre after the new taxes have finished with one’s wallet.
My lord, I hear the maize we were promised from Northern Rhodesia seems to be performing its own festive miracle of disappearance. We were told it was on its way, but it appears to be stuck in a perpetual holy pilgrimage somewhere between Chipata and Chadiza. At this stage, my lord, the citizens don’t know whether to believe the government or wait for a prophet to reveal the location of our daily bread.
The rollout of the Garden Input Subsidy Programme (Gisp) has been, to put it mildly, a calamitous pantomime. Our farmers are facing the planting season with the kind of uncertainty usually reserved for a gambling den, unsure if the subsidised fertiliser will arrive before the rains stop or if they should just apply their hopes instead. But they will celebrate Christmas all the same; perhaps by feasting on the colourful brochures describing the harvest they won’t have.
It is also a sacred tradition in Nyasaland to mark the birth of Christ in total, unadulterated darkness, courtesy of our well-orchestrated power outages. I must commend the new regime for its commitment to preserving this custom. After all, why waste electricity during a season of reflection? Candlelight is much more “pious,” even if it is mandatory.
Some cynical citizens insist on complaining about ‘walking in darkness’, forgetting that the Christian world is meant to be celebrating the “Great Light”. They just didn’t realise the government meant it metaphorically.
Then there is the festive zeal of our law enforcement. Some worry we are sliding toward a police state, pointing to the sudden flurry of arrests, parades and those wonderfully emphatic police statements. To suggest Nyasaland is a “police state” while the Mapuya apparatus is merely “restoring order” would be, in some circles, an insult of the highest order.
The police are simply showing their teeth for the holidays; though the more they bite, the more the public wonders if the bite is for justice or merely a performative holiday snack.
In the spirit of the season, we should remember that the birth of Christ brought hope to the lost. That same hope remains a small, stubborn, flickering candle for Nyasaland mostly because we can’t afford a flashlight. We will not stop hoping that life will improve for the ordinary citizen in 2026, if only because it is difficult to imagine it getting much worse.
Judge Mbadwa, I wish you and all court users a Merry Christmas. May your lights stay on longer than a politician’s promise!
Regards,
John Citizen
