When an administration thrives on utaka

There is something pathological about how the Arthur Peter Mutharika (APM) administration attracts controversy it does not need—it’s like the way utaka has this irritating habit of attracting flies right in the middle of a sumptuous meal in which the very same utaka is the delicacy of the day.

Think about it.

On his return from the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA)—which had attracted a bunch of flies because of the 100-plus toxic entourage that travelled to New York—on the public purse, the President decided to hold a press conference to talk about his exploits in the USA.

The agenda was great, but the outcome was messy. Presidential press secretary Gerald Viola launched the first salvo, denouncing the media for its exposure of the hundreds of millions of kwacha spent on hangers-on to the UN.

Viola, a broadcaster by profession, threw the folks he has brushed shoulders with for decades under the proverbial political bus just to look good to his boss.

Taking a cue from his top media adviser, Mutharika went to town on journalists for no apparent reason. The fallout was so bad that the President came out of it heavily bruised.

I mean, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is notorious for its well-documented hatred for the media, but people thought that maybe—just maybe—APM would turn the page. How naïve they seem to have been!

Now, if you thought that red-eyed stare at the media was a one-off whim, think again. This week, State House barred privately-owned Zodiak Broadcasting Station (ZBS) from covering a press conference on the President’s recent trips to Malta for the Commonwealth meetings, London and South Africa.

ZBS journalists were literally thrown out, yet they have a job—both as taxpayers and journalists—to listen to their Head of State on how beneficial those taxpayer-funded trips were to Malawians.

I mean, why would anyone in his or right mind shut out probably the most influential broadcast media house in the country where the President’s message would have reached and impacted so many millions of people nationwide?

Doesn’t anyone at State House or the government information communication machinery read monitoring reports by the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) that have consistently shown that ZBS has the highest audience ratings in the country, blanketing even the taxpayer funded and ruling party mouthpiece, the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC)?

Let’s assume that the ZBS crew came uninvited, the question is: why weren’t they invited in the first place? Is it because they are bold enough to grab a microphone when everyone is being polite and ask tough questions that the President stammers on?

Are these presidential handlers trying to give the impression that Mutharika hates, nay, fears, ZBS? Come on!

Then there is the mother of all embarrassments and government confusion. After the Malawi Government stood on the mountain top and told international human rights institutions, including the United Nations (UN), that there was a moratorium on arrests, detention and prosecution of people alleged to have engaged in homosexual practices, the Malawi Police Service (MPS) proceeded to arrest two men for allegedly having sex at one of the lovers’ home.

Now, I do not claim to understand why a man would want to have sex with another man. I will leave that to my friends Gift Trapence of the Centre for the Development of People (Cedep) and Timothy Mtambo of the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR).

These gentlemen have done research in these things and are better qualified to articulate them. But I really don’t care what two consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedroom.

I also get it that our Penal Code as it stands now criminalises the act of men having sex with other men. But a functioning government should stick to its word.

Capital Hill promised a moratorium on homosexuality-related arrests. It must honour that commitment otherwise, as the United States Embassy in Lilongwe said this week; it is Malawi’s international reputation that is on the knife, ready to be sliced into small meaningless pieces.

If government signed up to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which guarantees the right to privacy and the right to non-discrimination of all people, we must live up to that.

But when you commit so wholeheartedly at the highest level of government and the police proceed to ignore that which the leadership has told the world it will not do, the question is: where does someone get the courage to raise the middle finger at the leadership that made the decisions on behalf of the country?

More importantly, how does someone who embarrasses the country in such a manner and draws in the President in a controversy he does not need get away with this?

If it is the utaka, please take it off the State House and Capital Hill menu. It’s certainly bad for the President’s health.n