President Peter Mutharika should do Malawians a favour whenever he wants to travel between Lilongwe and Blantyre.
\nInstead of driving and inconveniencing citizens with his mile-long convoy and an entire Police Service dedicated to him, the President should just fly, which would ordinarily take less than an hour, and then he can find his beloved convoy at the airport in either city to take him wherever he wants.
\nOtherwise, his habit of making the four-hour connection between the two cities on the road, even to Mzuzu, sometimes is not only a physical inconvenience to the citizens who must always make way for him but also leaves us, the lesser mortals, exposed to danger on the treacherous road.
\nI happened to travel from Kasungu to Blantyre on Sunday, the same day Mutharika was travelling from Lilongwe to Blantyre, where he was this week for various engagements.
\nThis is what happened. Every 100 metres of the whole 400-kilometre stretch connecting the two cities was manned by either a bored policeman or woman.
\nMany of them looked miserable and clearly had no lunch because they looked hungry and tired.
\nThe police officers came in various forms, as well as shapes and sizes, including those wearing an ugly menacing look, carrying semi-automatic guns, with fatigue clearly taking its toll on them
\nWhat became very clear to me was that their mission was to serve only one person, the President and the rest of us could go to hell and burn in brimstone fire.
\nAll travellers on that road that day were exposed to danger.
\nThroughout the 400-kilometre stretch, no police officer, despite their presence every 100 metres, stopped me for anything\u2014 be it over-speeding, whether I am licensed to drive or indeed whether I am not carrying any contraband such as marijuana in the boot of my car.
\nIt was a free for all drive all the way from Lilongwe to Blantyre.
\nIn fact, I was joking with my wife, who accompanied me, that criminals intending to transport
\n chamba from Nkhotakota or Mzimba or, indeed, Kasungu should just check the diary of the President and do it on a day he is travelling as they won\u2019t be bothered by the police.
\nBut, on a serious note, this is dangerous and unnecessarily so and it is being caused by the President who has State resources to travel better.
\nThe dreaded speed cameras to catch those that want to drive like car racers such as Lewis Hamilton were nowhere to be seen that Sunday as the police hid their gadgets in preference to protecting His Excellency on the road.
\nContrast this with the way I travelled the previous Thursday morning from Blantyre to Lilongwe, when I was stopped at the Police at not less five checkpoints, with their speed cameras handy.
\nThe nightmare started quite early on the trip because at Lirangwe, I was booked for over-stepping on the gas pedal, doing 57 kilometres per hour on a stretch I was supposed to do 50 kilometres per hour.
\nIt was much the same the entire way to Lilongwe.
\nYet on Sunday, when His Excellency was also on the road, it was early Christmas for the Hamiltons of Malawi as they could do any speed they wanted as speed traps were locked up in Police store rooms.
\nWe were all exposed to danger unnecessarily, I repeat.
\nThere are daily scheduled Malawian Airline flights between Blantyre and Lilongwe and the President can be in either city in less than an hour.
\nIf Mutharika does not fancy this, then the Army has a fleet of aircraft at his disposal, any time, any day.
\nWhy he does not utilise these opportunities and choose to make our lives difficult by travelling by road, only he and those that surround him know.
\nThis could result in needless death of innocent Malawians due to accidents that can happen as a result of speeding by unchecked reckless drivers.
\nThe population of the two cities is exposed to drugs such as marijuana or exotic ones that are transported freely due to the fact that every police man or woman working on the day is dedicated to protecting the life of one person.
\nI think this selfishness by my President should stop, together with the thinking that Malawians should not speak on matters that affect their lives and if they do, then they are doing it because they are opposition or they are doing it with a view to bring down the DPP government.
\nThe electoral reforms, including the 50 percent plus One provision, have been the agenda of all Malawians.
\nWhen he was a candidate in 2014, the President committed to them and promised Malawians that he would do the needful once elected.
\nMalawians know that Mutharika does not keep promises and this one on reforms is just one of the many he is happy to break because he thinks tribalism and regionalism will save his skin during 2019 polls.
\nWell, he should stick to it, other than lying that someone wanted to bring down his government using Pac and the reforms.
\nWhat will bring down his government is his propensity to break promises for selfish intentions.
\nI wish you all a Merry Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Peter Mutharika should do Malawians a favour whenever he wants to travel between Lilongwe and Blantyre. Instead of driving and inconveniencing citizens with his mile-long convoy and an entire Police Service dedicated to him, the President should just fly, which would ordinarily take less than an hour, and then he can find his beloved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57961","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\/57961","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=57961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57969,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57961\/revisions\/57969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}