Sow the wind, reap a cyclone
October 10, 2019
That Malawi is currently a volatile State goes beyond doubt. Events this week show how far we are going in tolerating intolerance. It appears no one knows how to stop this roller-coaster.
At first glance, you would think the Blantyre Secondary School (BSS) students had it all wrong for trying to march to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) offices to petition on corruption and mismanagement at the school. You would dismiss them for wayward ‘youth of today’ trying to emulate what has become the norm: Take to the streets.
But, if you listen to their arguments, you know they are on course for theirs is a microcosm of the corrupt rot in our secondary schools. The learners claim they are concerned that some students are being ‘transferred’ from community day secondary schools (CDSSs) to the national secondary school. These things are happening, not only at BSS, and the learners chose not to bury their heads in the sand.
It should really be painful for the children who sweated to earn a place at the school while somebody else was lazing it off knowing someday money will buy their way to a better school.
It is unfortunate that some overzealous teargas-happy police officers had to inflame the children even further.
And while we were about it, there was ‘fire’ in Limbe where the Blantyre City Council (BCC) was trying to relocate vendors. Goodness knows why the assembly chose this volatile moment to chase the vendors away. It cannot be far from the truth that now that the election period is seemingly gone, the assembly felt it was time to flex its muscles. There is no vote
Not that I am for the idea of vendors selling tomatoes and usipa at bank entrances, but the timing to get them off was wrong. No wonder the line ministry called for a postponement of the relocation.
The uncontrollable ‘fire’, the fruit of our volatile State went wild again at Nsundwe. In the end, a mob stoned to death Superintendent Usumani Imedi. The unruly residents felt President Peter Mutharika had no freedom in the city to launch a 250 secondary school project.
I am a firm believer that dying on the job is a real sad turn of events. Imedi’s death was, to say the least, shocking.
The wind of violence we have been sowing is slowly ripening into the bitter cyclone of destruction and, unfortunately, death. We reap what we sow.
It was my expectation that Mutharika would use his first rally in the Capital to help bring back sanity on Malawians. Instead of acting the unifying father, Mutharika turned his back and went ahead with his signature name-calling and all the rub.
He certainly showed us that he cannot sit at the table of brotherhood with anyapapi and that he was engaging no reverse gear on his election victory. That should read: Even if the courts declare otherwise, my supporters should not take it lying down.
On the other hand, I also wish Malawi Congress Party (MCP) president Lazarus Chakwera would, for once, come down to earth and speak against this Nsundwe lawlessness. That I say because it may be misconstrued that coming from his stronghold, the Nsundwe ruffians are his supporters.
The political impasse needs political solutions. We lost a five-year-old at Queen Elisabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre the other day. Now it is officer Imedi. What about the public and private property that has been razed down?
Who will be next for us to really understand things are getting too much out of hand? n
