THE TWISTER
I still believe President Bingu wa Mutharika is a good leader capable of turning around the economy of the country and start re-writing new chapter on issues of human rights and governance; it seems the problem lies with his stooges who take pleasure in feeding him with noxious advice.
The recent negative publicity that has embroiled the presidency is due to nothing but venomous and half-baked admonitions from his stooges.
Let’s put this issue in context by illustrating it with a number of scenarios. Like every human being, the president gets angry over some issues; and the presidency being the highest office in the land when the office holder is bursting with emotions, you expect the advisors to intervene by moderating and cooling down his fury.
But if you ask me what do the stooges masquerading as advisors and strategists do? Instead of calming down the angry president so that a rational decision is arrived at and the president continues to enjoy huge respect he commands, the minions join the president in his anger, fuel it and pose as if they are angrier than the president himself. In their faked rage, they craft a vicious and treacherous decision which when executed would enrage the citizenry and in the process the president loses his popularity and respect.
I am writing this from experience having dealt with the presidency directly and indirectly. Last week for instance, I was reliably informed that the president was extremely angry with me over our coverage of the university graduation where this publication highlighted the murmuring that students made when the president was commenting on the issue of academic freedom.
During my conversation with one of the president’s aides I was also told that another story that pissed of the Ngwazi was the non-appearance of a barge at Nsanje Inland Port.
When the president gets angry over negative coverage of events, I feel for him because as a human being he is not immune to getting annoyed. In good political set-ups when the president gets emotional his handlers have an obligation to use anger management strategies to cool down him.
But what happens when the president is angry with a newspaper article and he is sharing his frustration with his advisors.
I assume this is how some of them react: “Bwana, this newspaper is ungrateful and it fails to appreciate your achievements, we will use every trick in the book by forcing government agencies, the police and even our legal minds to close their company,” one advisor would say.
Another would immediately jump up and say: “I think we immediately need to stop advertising in that publication. The paper has an arrogant editor called Twister. We need to teach them a bitter lesson.”
Another one would mull over it and declare: “Despite our intention are politically motivated, we can strategise and manoeuvre and use filthy trick like pressuring on their tax liabilities.
This is the pathetic state of political affairs in our land where advisors would sit and plot evil instead of giving sound advice.
In the event that the president’s image is in negative limelight in the media, what would have happened if the president had good advisors?
The minister of information and the presidential press officer and spokesperson would court the publishers and editors over lunch and discuss their concerns. This is the tactic that a number of leaders including US president Barack Obama uses time and again.
Obama hosts luncheons with journos at White House and some of the previous attendees included journalists from CNN, Washington Post, Newsweek and other media houses. Some of the luncheons were actually off-record.
Can the president get the same advice from his advisors who get angrier than him on his behalf. The answer is: “I doubt!” Instead of advising the president to meet publishers and editors, their insistence will be to ban advertisements or close down media houses.
Strangely the advisors deep down their hearts clearly know the backlash and the negative publicity that the president would suffer if his administration can make a mistake of closing a media house at the time we have assured the International Monetary Fund and other donors of our commitments to adhere to human rights issues including respect for press freedom.
I have a second scenario of how advisors mislead and create negative publicity for the president. Here we go. Government on October 14 issued a statement which read: “The government of the Republic of Malawi hereby revokes, reverses and withdraws any expulsion or deportation order that was, earlier this year, unfortunately made or issued against or in respect of His Excellency Mr Fergus Cochrane Dyet, the British High Commissioner to Malawi.
The statement added: “Accordingly, His Excellency Cochrane-Dyet is at liberty to enter Malawi at anytime on the instructions of Her Majesty’s Government or otherwise.”
As far as I am concerned this is one of the best statements on diplomacy and international cooperation, government has issued this year. The statement is clear and self-explanatory and it actually compliments the good foundation that Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mutharika and his delegation were laying in the United Kingdom during their meeting with William Hague and his company.
Can you guess what one of the advisors did to spoil the well-calculated diplomatic game plan?
He rushed to the media and started making noise that Malawi has not apologized to Britain and Zambia. Surely after that powerful statement written in black and white; and after dispatching the Peter Mutharika delegation to London, did we need noisemakers to comment on the same issue?
Government tact demanded that the noisemakers should for a moment be silent and let the people interpret the government’s diplomatic statement the way they want. Pronto! But lo, the noisemakers were all over the media sending completely opposite signals, mocking the good spirits of government’s statements.
Let me conclude by imploring the president and his young brother to ignore venomous advice from some of his sympathizers including those of my cousins who come from what has been nicknamed as political PMCT zone, thus Phalombe, Mulanje, Chiradzulu and Thyolo zone. Not every piece of advice from PMCT Zone is useful.
I know how some of my uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces and sisters from PMCT zone think politically they can bring chaos in the name of political patronage.
Long live democracy, long live press freedom.
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