At the time British American colonies won the War of Independence there arise several political theorists about the type of government that should replace the colonial type. Among the great thinkers were James Madeson and Thomas Jefferson. Some wanted a weak national (federal) government; most of the powers remaining with the states. Others wanted the opposite; a strong federal government that left little power to states. Debates hovered over matters like these.<\/p>\n
In Africa, such influential political philosophers at the beginning of the independence era were conspicuous by their absence. It was up to the big people who had brought about independence to rule as they wished. There was some talk about democracy, rule of law and separation of powers. But there were no authoritative texts which could guide those had a duty to implement and interpret these paradigms. Now, there is need to systematise our political philosophies having tasted dictatorship, one-party rule and multiparty democracy. The ideal state has not been achieved by any government in Africa. But what is an ideal state like?<\/p>\n
An ideal state may be impossible to attain, that is no reason for not trying. Prophets founded religions in order to try and establish an ideal way of life on the earth. Though the ideal life has not been attained religions are still preached in temples, synagogues, churches and mosques because are necessary.<\/p>\n
An ideal state should have the following characteristics among others; a government that is strong to ensure all its citizen security of life and property; a government should safeguard people\u2019s rights and freedom to pursue their own interest provided the rights of one person do not frustrate the rights of another person; those who take charge of the government should be elected and appointed according to methods that are fair, free and transparent then should be no room for perfidity; there should be a circulation of elites both vertically and horizontally. Those who are on top should not remain there indefinitely but only according to time limits prescribed by the constitution. Power tends to corrupt those who remain in office too long; the government should encourage talent not mediocrity. No one should hold office because of privilege of birth or affiliation to tribe, religion and region; just as presidents are required to serve two terms totalling 10 years, no one should serve as a minister for a total of more than 15 years and an MP not more than 20 years. They should give way to others so that the nation may scout for new talent. In a republic, monopolies of power should not be tolerated; in all we do the motto should be salus populi supreme lex <\/em>(the welfare of the people is supreme law). The list given is not intended to be exhausted.<\/p>\n I heard from the radio that the President has made Senior Ngolongoliwa Paramount Chief of all the Lhomwe and Senior Chief Kawinga Paramount Chief of all the Yao. The announcer made reference to the fact that Ngoni of Ntcheu and Mzimba do have paramount chiefs.<\/p>\n The news was both interesting and puzzling. Traditionally, since colonial days, governments have recognised chiefs that had been appointed according to tribal customs. In some tribes, chiefs are succeeded by their sons. This is the case among the Ngoni, the Tumbuka and Ngonde. Among the Chewa and other tribes, sons or daughters of chiefs\u2019 sisters take over.<\/p>\n During most of the time that Malawi has existed as a modern nation, only the Ngoni have had paramount chiefs who ruled all the chiefs of a district. History explains this.<\/p>\n At first, a tribe had one chief but the chiefdom expanded and the chief found it necessary to have assistants at area levels. He appointed sub-chiefs.<\/p>\n The idea that the whole tribe and district should be under one chief has been practised by the Ngoni; other tribes have preferred to have chiefs of equal rank to rule the tribe and district.<\/p>\n Presumably, the need for a paramount chief was felt by the Yao and the Lhomwe themselves. If so, did they have to wait for the government to appoint one of them? Why did they not do this themselves and then ask the government to recognise him or her?<\/p>\n We say chiefs should be non-partisan and apolitical. This will be impossible if chiefs owe their existence to the political party in power.<\/p>\n It seems now Malawi is moving towards a scenario that existed in France before the Revolution of 1789. France was divided to three estates; the Nobles, the Clergy and the Commoners or Third Estates. Senior and paramount chiefs were appointed by president. Do their successors inherit these exalted titles or do they start at the bottom?<\/p>\n Among the Ngoni, the paramount chief\u2019s court served as the appeal court for all cases in the district that the government allowed chiefs to try. Government policies were communicated to the chiefs through paramount chief; no chief was allowed to by-pass the paramount and make an agreement with the government. If this is not going to be the case among the Yao and the Lhomwe, then this system of paramount is going to be different from that of the Ngoni. We are told Ngolongoliwa will be paramount chief of all Lhomwe of Malawi and Kawinga of all Yaos of Malawi. On the other hand, M\u2019mbelwa is paramount chief only of the Ngoni of Mzimba and Gomani only of the people of Ntcheu not all the Ngoni of Malawi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the time British American colonies won the War of Independence there arise several political theorists about the type of government that should replace the colonial type. Among the great thinkers were James Madeson and Thomas Jefferson. Some wanted a weak national (federal) government; most of the powers remaining with the states. Others wanted the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":34728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42939,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42935\/revisions\/42939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}