Of Malawi leader's public lecture, arrogance and empty gimmicks

THE TWISTER

BY BRIAN LIGOMEKA

The political pot is boiling. The civil society organisations are planning to hold demonstrations to protest against poor governance and economic woes dogging the country. Poor economic management, the obvious putrid fruits of decayed fiscal and monetary policies are manifesting themselves through fuel shortages, forex scarcity, high unemployment and poverty.

The once over-hyped moniker of our leader as an economic engineer, which we were persuaded to accept as true during yesteryears has turned to be a political falsehood.

I was on a fuel queue with my son this other day and he turned to me and asked: “I thought people were alleging that Atcheya was uneducated and his handling of economic issues was shambolic, why is it that during his ten-year reign, Malawi never experienced fuel and forex shortages as is the case now when our country is being led by a professor and an economics PhD holder?”

Honestly speaking I had no answer. All I did was to hit back at him with suggestions: “Go and ask your lecturer if education can remove political arrogance, myopia and egocentrism. Find out from your lecturer what happens when you are very advanced in age in terms of your reasoning capacity and your attitude towards others. Ask your lecturer about the age at which one starts showing signs of being senile?” Then you will have an answer.

If you don’t find an answer from your lecturers, then read an investigative audit and management report of the special committee of eminent persons on the operations of Comesa part of which declares:

 “The relations between Comesa and its institutions, and Member States are restrained because of the demeanour and arrogance of the Secretary General. He has created more misunderstanding and hatred in the institution and member States than he has made friends.”

The report laments in part that its Secretary General did not fully utilise his directors for decision making as a team as he was fond of summoning them either “to lecture to them, rebuke or impose his will on them”.

 “The net effect has been to reduce his directors to implementers of his directives which by and large breach the existing legal instruments. Indeed, he uses them to rubber-stamp his decisions,” reads the Comesa report in part that ended in that Secretary General being fired.

I told my son that if he reads that Comesa Report he would understand why Malawi is embroiled in political and economic quagmire; and why this country is at risk of degenerating into a dynasty.

I made those suggestions to my son because I did not want to tell him that while high education makes some become better citizens, the same high education turn others into crazy, arrogant, egoistic and nepotistic individuals.

The point is that Atcheya had his own basketfuls of political and economic goofs including the third term psychosis, but the performance of the current regime leaves a lot to be desired. Malawians are now bearing the brunt of the dictatorial, disastrous and tactless leadership whose consequences are the fuel queues, enactment of idiotic laws, the freezing of donor aid and many other idiosyncratic gaffes. Just imagine at the peak of the current diplomatic gaffes, fuel and forex shortages, someone believes that the best solution he can offer to Malawians is to stage a public lecture which has already been snubbed by the opposition and the civil society as cataclysmic and contemptible.

The current crises do not need political gimmicks in form of public lectures, neither do they need public lies as answers. They need real solutions and not empty talk and arrogant excuses sandwiched with distorted Pan Africanism philosophy and political sovereignty postulations that ignore the fundamental benefits and costs of globalisation and good governance.

Of dictatorships and dynasties in Africa

THE TWISTER

 BY BRIAN LIGOMEKA

The Twister is keeping an eye on the political developments in North Africa and Middle East with keen interest. The sudden and swift collapse of autocrats in that region is astonishing and remarkable because just like the rest of dictators, we have on this part of the continent autocrats in the Arab world were egoistic, cruel, corrupt and extravagant. I never anticipated this political trend in that region.   

What I know is that some dictators in the Arab world took pleasure in depriving the populace of their basic human rights including freedom of the press and academic freedom while through nepotism they enriched a small minority of their minions, ethnic citizens and political puppets at the expense of national development.

Even when the winds of change started blowing in those dictatorial regimes, some despots attempted to hold their grip on power by using all forms of terror and repression, but their tactics never worked at all. Perhaps we need to go back in memory lane by looking at how mass protests resulted in the downfall of Tunisian leader Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The Tunisian popular revolt amazes me because it was triggered by a mere vegetable vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi. The genesis of it was a police officer who slapped him in broad daylight and confiscated his vegetables.  The young man could not take that humiliation and he set himself on fire. Unfortunately for the dictator of Tunisia, the 26-year-old vendor died on January 4 and his death fanned a popular revolt whose consequence is well known.

Inspired by how Tunisians kicked out their dictator who had oppressed them for 23 years, Egyptians followed suit and toppled Hosni Mubarak within three weeks. Mubarak’s downfall reminds me of how Indonesian dictator Suharto who ruled for 31 years was also shown the political exit in 1998 after mass protests. The revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria demonstrate that when people are tired of dictatorial rule, they can topple their leaders.

While in North Africa and Middle East revolutions are working miracles, we seem to have a different chapter on this part of Africa. We seem to tolerate dictatorships and even allow them to degenerate into monarchs where heads of state transfer their executive power to their off-springs and relatives.

Congolese allowed Joseph Kabila to inherit the presidency and run their country from his dad Laurent Kabila.Autocrat Gnassingbe Eyadema, who ruled Togo with an iron fist for 38 years, died in power and his son Faure Gnassingbe Eyadema took over power and revolved into a dictator.  In Gabon, Omar Bongo after four decades of being in power, his son Ali-Ben Bongo took over power from him .

The point I am driving at is that it is possible to stop relatives of dictators from taking over power from their dads and uncles, however that is only possible when you are not in deep political slumber.

Relatives of dictators can easily take over power from their dads and uncles in a political environment where the opposition is weak and citizens are docile. As far as The Twister is concerned, dictators must be stopped in their tracks regardless of their rhetoric or their exaggerated achievements which are obviously financed by donors and taxpayers money. Never dare to ask The Twister which dictator on this part of the continent is grooming to have his relative as the next president, because he does not have a ready answer.