Why Mwenifumbo apologised

Frank Tumpale Mwenifumbo is exhibiting all signs and symptoms of man who has been in the political wildness for over four lean months.

After the death of former president Bingu wa Mutharika in April, the DPP director of youths was the among the first to shamefully change allegiance to President Joyce Banda’s Peoples Party (PP) in search of gold and greener pastures.

What shocked many was that this was even before the late Mutharika was buried.

Unfortunately, there was no PP welcome party for Mwenifumbo then. But politics being what it is, Mwenifumbo is now on board of the tantalising government gravy train and in an apparent attempt to please the PP hierarchy, a party which has now welcomed him, he is doing his very best to ensure that the plate remains full for many years to come so that he lives happily ever thereafter.

In his overzealousness to appear like a man reincarnated and, as a way of recanting his former DPP past, Mwenifumbo told his PP welcome party in Mzuzu that he was sorry for ordering civil servants in Zomba to stop reading Nation titles or else they would lose their jobs.

His justification? He wanted to please the late Mutharika, who as the country knows well, died a sad man that his passing on proceeded that of Nation. This was the extent of the pathological hate that Mutharika had for Nation.

But Mwenifumbo should not fool the nation or his PP benefactors for the matter.

The new rebranded image Mwenifumbo is trying to present is a false one and done in bad faith. His apology— like all the apologies that we have grown accustomed to receiving these days from those that worked with the late Mutharika and whose preoccupation was making the lives of Malawians miserable— is coming too late and too little at a time we do not need it because God the Almighty has made us move on from that terrible period.

The scars are still there alright and horrendous effects of the Mutharika regime are still reverberating but Malawians should not be fooled by sweet-coated apologies that come from lions in sheep skin in the likes of Mwenifumbo.

People such as Mwenifumbo have no idea of the pain that they inflicted on some Malawians in their attempt to practise politics of patronage during the old regime. Did Mwenifumbo, for example, know how many how jobs he was putting on line when he told civil servants to stop reading Nation titles?

And to imagine that Mwenifumbo thought that by the mere fact that he was director of youth in DPP it gave him the right and privilege to choose for a whole civil service in Malawi what to read and what not to read, can be infuriating to some of us.

By the way this ranged from Chief Secretary Bright Msaka—a very respectable and dignified man— to the lowest ranked civil servant. In Mwenifumbo’s world, they all had to comply or else they risked their jobs. This how insolent and patronising politicians of Mwenifumbo’s calibre can be. They assume power over our lives which they should not have at all in the first place.

And make no mistake Mwenifumbo’s rantings in Zomba bore some desired fruit. I have it on good authority that some civil servants at the Capital Hill, afraid for their jobs but at the same time finding Nation titles irresistible, had to read them in the toilet.

So, before Mwenifumbo rushes to apologise to endear himself to PP, what does he say to such people? What does he say about the fact that Nation lost revenue because of his overzealousness to please a tinpot dictator?

Mwenifumbo should not cheat Malawians. There is only one thing he is apologising for and it is the government gravy train. It can be too cold for comfort out here. And the apology could not have come at a better strategic time than just a week before the PP convention. Who knows, perhaps Mwenifumbo may just get himself another position in PP to use it for more directives to civil servants!

But let us face facts. Mwenifumbo joining PP is not a big deal because it is his right to do so and I am sure he would point it out quickly if cornered. What is a big deal, however, is his chequered past when he attempted to make lives of some of us miserable by what he said in Zomba.

The PP should, therefore, reflect on whether it is in their interest to accommodate in its ranks people that made lives of Malawians a living hell right here on earth for merely exercising their right to criticise an elected government

Malawians know why Mwenifumbo has joined PP and it is not impressive.