Don’t frustrate our Martha
As I wrote this article on Thursday, some Malawians, fed up with decades-long lip service by successive regimes to fight corruption, were making final touches to preparations for the pro-Martha Chizuma demonstrations.
According to the planners of the protest—Citizens Against Impunity and Corruption (CAIC)—backed by a horde of other civil society groups, the event is a “direct result of the careless decision of Mr Ashok Kumar Sreedharan a corruption suspect, to sue the people’s director general of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Martha Chizuma, in her personal capacity, on matters arising from the very case which Ashok is being sought to be prosecuted.
“We have decided to meet this man so that he knows us and we also know him, in person. Thus, the march shall start from Simama Hotel to the House of Mr Ashok in Area 9, via Lilongwe Town Hall and Maula”.
Well, I will not hazard to peremptorily say whether or not the much-awaited and touted demonstrations took place yesterday as planned because in Malawi, a day can be a century and anything and so much can happen. All I can say is that this was set to be the second pro-Martha Chizuma demonstration since her appointment as the Anti-Corruption Bureau director general in April last year. For the second time Malawians were collectively scheduled to weigh in and show the ruling regime, they will no longer dance to its duplicity on fighting graft.
The writing on the wall is that if the citizens did it in April last year against the regime and succeeded, what would stop them from doing it again now?
In the last demonstrations, the citizens were ranting against the Public Appointments Committee (PAC) of Parliament for rejecting Chizuma for no convincing reasons, after she nailed the interviews to a hilt for the ACB top job, beating nine other candidates. PAC’s decision to snub Chizuma’s appointment was a massive drawback in as far as the fight against graft was concerned. But in retrospect, we now know and have reason to believe PAC spurned Chizuma out of pure fear by some committee members that she would lay bare skeletons in their closets.
When civil society groups planned street demonstrations in protest against PAC’s position, the whole House hastily agreed on a motion compelling the committee to immediately provide a report on their decision before the coup de grace was overturned. The committee reconvened and confirmed Chizuma as the new ,and first female Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) director general.
But 10 months or so in office, Chizuma has, apparently, been too hot for the comfort of some if not many senior officials in the ruling regime.
Last month, an audio clip leaked in which the ACB head, among other things, is heard in a conversation with an undisclosed person, claiming that a specific judge accepted a bribe ahead of Ashok Kumar Sreedharam’s court hearing on his arrest. Sreedharam is Zunneth Sattar’s business associate. Sattar is currently being investigated in Malawi and the United Kingdom for financial transactions suspected to have corrupt elements.
Ashok has sued Chizuma for defamation in her personal capacity. The recording earned her a misconduct rebuke from President Lazarus Chakwera after she admitted to him that the said conversation was authentic.
But whatever the outcome of the demonstrations yesterday, events around Chizuma clearly show she is too hot for the administration’s comfort and liking. Being two-faced in their schemes, they would rather have a figurehead at the helm of the graft-busting body than a down-to-earth legal bulldozer who distributes no sweets and takes the bull by the horns like our Martha. And so at all costs, they want her out, only they are being tactical. But their hypocrisy has been exposed and our Martha is the people’s choice for that job.
