Africa-Press – Malawi. It appears that, somehow, there are people in this country who have a knack for creating unnecessary commotion and the danger with that is that one day, such kind of acts will cost us all dearly and it would be too late to quell whatever fire it would have started.
My line of thought has been triggered by what we witnessed last week when Malawi Police Service (MPS) decided to bemuse Malawians by summoning to Area 30 the Director General for Anti- Corruption Bureau Martha Chizuma for what it called ‘investigation interview’ before unceremoniously calling it off.
I could see from the word go that this was not going to end well because in the press release which the law enforcers had issued alerting the public of the purported interview, there was this statement:
“The MPS calls for calm as this is a normal interview”. One could easily smell something fishy from this statement alone because; why else would those tasked with ensuring law and order be urging the public to stay clam? They must have known that trouble was brewing with what they were attempting to pull off. It was therefore not surprising to see Chizuma sympathisers mobilising themselves to ‘escort her to Area 30’.
Whether this was a matter of testing the waters or indeed a case of try and error, the law enforcers stirred some unnecessary excitement and kudos to them for calling off last minute their planned interview as it could have quickly escalated into chaos.
There were some undertones among the citizenry that what we were witnessing, especially the developments of that Friday, was a mere smokescreen meant to divert the attention of the public from the real battle being waged against corruption, with Chizuma leading from the front.
It was great to hear President Lazarus Chakwera, who appointed Chizuma and received the backing of Malawians after Parliament had initially decided against endorsing her name, throwing his full weight behind her. It helped dispel any thoughts some people might have entertained regarding the level of confidence that the President has in the ACB chief.
This was an important statement by the President because, somehow, there are some people out there that have tried to create an impression that the tenant at House Number One would like to shield some sacred cows within the system who have been entangled in the corruption cobweb. This is despite the fact that he has always stated that he will not shield any Cabinet minister or top official found on the wrong side of the law in as far as the graft fight goes.
Be that as it may, let Chakwera not be blind to the fact that there might be one or two within his Tonse Alliance-led government who might want to take advantage of his being a man-of-the-cloth to pull off some corrupt schemes in the hope that he or she will be forgiven by the First Citizen. He must therefore come out forcefully with his stand now and again; especially considering that, at one point, State House itself came out in the open to rebuke some staff for allegedly engaging in corrupt acts.
Therefore Chakwera must remain steadfast and, just like Malawians have shown, should not allow that Chizuma be thrown to the ‘wolves’ simply because she has been relentless in the pursuit of justice. We should instead, as a country, be dealing with that pack of wolves to ensure that we stem the tide of corruption once and for all. The other day I overheard somebody jokingly say that the ACB boss must be jealously guarded by the authorities, just like we are doing with Pangolins
That is not to say that our dear chief of the ACB is beyond reproach; far from it! What people do not want is for the country to be skirting around real issues that warrant our attention.
We must never allow this country to be ‘bequeathed’ to any group or individual for the love of gold or silver. Malawi belongs to us all and if we say we must rid the system of deep-rooted corruption, then we must pull in the same direction; it is all for one and one for all!
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