THE TWISTER
BY BRIAN LIGOMEKA
Peter Mutharika is a lucky dude. Most of us just dream of being a relation to a State President, let alone having a brother for a president. Not that he needs relations in high places to make it, anyway. Peter has accomplished a lot in his own right. You just have to look at his CV that this is for the man on the move.
In marketing there is a concept of brand association. In its simplest form, when one product reminds you of another because they both belong to the same brand family or they have similar attributes. For example, if you enjoy reading The Sunday Times as I do, then knowing that The Daily Times is also published by BNL, you would be encouraged to try out the Daily Times on account of its cousin The Sunday Times. In time you just ask for the Times instead of asking for a newspaper because the two are associated.
I suspect that those who crafted the early campaign to endorse Peter Mutharika as a potential successor of his brother may have been inspired by this phenomenon. Bingu wa Mutharika accomplished so much under very trying circumstances during his first five years, they must have reasoned that the young brother could do even better under more inviting conditions.
I must say, that this sounded very logical until we began to depart from the people centred path, development focused journey and headed to you know where. At the risk of being given 72 hours to pack up and go, the issues of our new destination have been raised and documented well and there is no need to repeat them here.
Trouble is, through brand association, if you are unhappy with a product your first reaction is also to reject the other brands associated to it. This is about perception. It has nothing to do with reality which could be different. The current president should know this one better. Malawians almost rejected to give him his first term. It wasn’t so much about him as many people did not know him at that point but rather who was he associated with. People feared that the man on whose shoulder Bingu was hoisted could be the one pulling the strings once he got into office. We were only able to prove that theory wrong after the elections were gone.
Now the president is on record that Peter Mutharika is “free to stand and contest for any position. And I mean any position” and that he should not be punished simply because he has a brother for a president. And I agree totally. The trouble is that through brand association Peter will either benefit or be punished for his brother’s successes or failures. The issue is not whether the young professor is capable or has a good CV? It is all about brand association.
Maybe in the light of this revelation, the president could review if some of the decisions he has been making lately will destroy or enhance his brother’s chances for the high office. Some of the decisions though are tantamount to de-campaigning the brother. But there is no cause for panic. Malawians have a short memory and 2014 is too far away. He could mend his ways and put the Mutharika dynasty train back on track.
There are a few house keeping issues the president needs to do to help his party and brother. He should slow down on antagonizing everyone. You just have to listen to those phone in programmes to gauge the mood of the general populace. It is not pleasant. The second point is to free the hand of young Mutharika. It may have been ok sixty odd years ago to go and sort out whoever was bothering his young brother. It is no longer cool to do that today. Let him fight his own battles. He is more than capable. Let the work of his hands bear testimony too.
The starting point should be the ongoing impasse between university lecturers and Government. Let Peter Mutharika demonstrate what he is made of. The elder brother shouldn’t have jumped the gun, but that is history. It is time to reboot.
Readers will remember those standing ovations that Peter Mutharika got at both the Great Hall in Zomba and at Mzuzu University when he presented those very well received public lectures. Come to think of it, were those lectures supposed to lay the ground work for the start of the campaign itself.
For starters, with over 40 years under his belt as an acclaimed scholar Peter knows exactly from which zoo the animal called academic freedom came from. All he needs is to remind those naughty professors that he is one of them and that all those years in academic corridors abroad he was having academic freedom for breakfast. He has tasted it, it is good and that now he cannot have it any other way – especially that he is also Minister of Education. He could then have assured them that they leave the azina, the other Peter from Chiradzulo to him to deal with.
I have a nagging suspicion that those questioning academic minds would have given him another standing ovation and returned to class if he had done that earlier. Even today, the drama that is going on in court between the University Council and the lecturers, Peter Mutharika is among the few that can make sense of it all. No it is not too late Peter. Go back to the president and tell him: “brother let me handle this. Why do you think I was put on a panel to arbitrate on Uncle Bob’s issues in Zimbabwe? Please give me a chance to prove myself.”
The president should not have problems with such a request, if not for the sake of our children who don’t know when they will return to school then definitely for the sake of Peter. Look, if Peter cannot be trusted to handle a problem with one university, how shall he cope with seven universities? Or will the elder brother hang around to do it for him? Why would he not let him handle problems in a ministry that he is heading?
I don’t think Malawians really know Peter and here is an opportunity for him to score some browning points. It is just a matter of time before some misguided Malawians after drowning in kabanga or ntonjani should start asking silly questions like: “if he can’t trust him to handle the university problem, should we trust him with the whole country to run come 2014?”
This article first appeared in The Daily Times of Malawi
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