There will be an end

The past four years under the iron-fisted rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have been full of terror.

Ordinary Malawians have forgotten how life in its normalcy is supposed to be. Only few closest to the throne can afford a plush life after excessive plunder and colossal thievery. The other day, Vice President Saulos Chilima was blunt when he criticized stinking corruption whose odour has penetrated every space of this country. Chilima is in government and knows exactly what he was talking about. Sadly, his boss, who is President Peter Mutharika, is a silent referee of corruption and cannot have the temerity to condemn it in public and private.

It is pretty disgusting that some people have been blinded by party loyalty such that they look at everyone who points at the wrongs of this government with utter disdain. They are even reading this with seething fury. But who cares? As they say in Chichewa chitsiru chili ndi mwini, the DPP and its leadership still boasts of mammoth supporters who are even ready to kill for their party.

The DPP has always been known for its treacherous, barbaric and sadist rule right from the ill-fated reign of Bingu wa Mutharika. Who would deny that between 2009 and 2011, Malawi was led to hell by the other Mutharika? When Bingu fell and the DPP went out of power, Malawians—who are universally known for their exaggerated reverence and praise for the dead— rejoiced and popped champagne. It was not about celebrating the passing of a human being rather the exit of a gory and dangerously brutal system of the DPP.

But fate or is it ineptitude on the part of citizens had it that the DPP return to power in 2014. Between these years, there have been mysterious deaths of people like Issa Njauju, Maxon Mbendera and George Bakuwa. Nobody is interested to come to the bottom of these deaths. You know why. The system has folded its files, slipped its hands in the pocket then walked away whispering some diabolic tunes. Evil, devilish!

Today, Malawians are under economic terrorism schemed by the same DPP. The DPP will give you tantalising inflation figures yet the ordinary citizen is still living a life of damnation. In desperation, apart from laying foundation stones, the DPP has now sank so low to even commission projects that others did some time back—the Lirangwe-Chingale Road project comes to mind quickly.

What the DPP knows best is the disrespectful art of deception and extermination. A tale is told that Italy’s Benito Mussolini used to leave his office lights on all night and loved being captured topless with a shovel to deceive people that he was a hardworking leader yet he was otherwise. Peter Mutharika decided to litter our streets with massive pictures of him staring at us with the message of hardworking, integrity, honesty and what have you. But is he the perfect embodiment of these virtues let alone the rightful emissary of the message? No.

Malawians are in a state of captivity economically, psychologically and socially. What baffles, beats, stuns and irritates me and other well-meaning Malawians is that Mutharika and his cabal refuses to accept that they have messed up this country and must seek redress. Listening to Mutharika, a stranger in town would think this is one visionary leader who has transformed the country and has all the bragging rights. But this is an old, hopeless and clueless leader who has failed to fight corruption, impunity, tribalism and blatant oppression. How Mutharika still has the confidence to offer himself for election next year when he will be 80 perplexes me. We must be a nation too damned.

There are two ways. Either Mutharika knows that his political mojo has wilted but just wants to play brave or he is blind to reality. And Mutharika is not being helped by people who have surrounded him. Mutharika, instead of surrounding himself with level-headed and candid advisors, all he has are a grouping of fortune-seekers who are still using old and tired tactics of intimidation, brutality and creation of stiff-necked groupings leaning on tribe, religion or region.

Adolf Hitler hypnotized the Schutzstaffel, Gestapo and the Hitler Youth in his grisly extermination of Jews, In Rwanda the MRND used the susceptible Interahamwe to wipe out the Tutsi during that stomach-churning genocide of 1994, between 1996 and 2001 the Taliban terrorized Afghanistan in the name of religion while in the Gambia, Yahya Jammeh captured the minds of the meek Gambians into believing he was a demi-god.

Here at home the DPP has created an obvious system of terror by infiltrating public institutions such as the Malawi Revenue Authority, Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi and Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority to siphon money for campaign while on the other hand to cramp down on perceived subversive voices. That is why you see selective treatment of organisations. All you need to do is toe the ruling party line.

But what people forget is that the world is like a parade: at a turn the last becomes the first and the first the last. The year 2019 is not far from today and as they say for good things, even bad things, such as this DPP-led government, there will be an end.