By Timotheus Mason
On 12 July, 2024, President Lazarus Chakwera contrasted himself over what being slow is. A day earlier he had said ‘Malawians have a slowness entrenched in the public service where people have no sense of urgency, leading to Malawi’s stagnation’.
As it is, the blows he had to come to terms with on Friday, en route to the 2025 elections, show he is not as swift as Malawians would want their leader to be.
His slothness is very apparent in how he handled the plane crash in which his vice, Saulos Chilima and eight other officials died at Nthungwa in the Chikangawa Forest on 20 June. The hours Chakwera took to announce the disappearance, deployment of a search and rescue team, the misinformation that followed, exposed a man not in control at Plot Number One.
His unplaced comments, like that he did not orchestrate the crash since others, including himself, had used the plane not too long before the accident. Then, there weree revalations from his lieutenants that one of his blue-eyed boys Richard Chimwendo Banda was going to aboard the plane but plans changed abruptly. This raises more questions than answers for upright people.
Friday exposed further the President’s ineptitude to lead a nation swiftly in a crisis.
First, a statement from the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Investigation (BFU) showed their investigation of the Dornier 228-202 (K) Malawi Defence Force (MDF) plane was purely technical, and ‘independent of judicial or administrative proceedings’.
This pitted as clear to show that Minister of Information Moses Kunkuyu lied between his teeth, that government was working with the German team to unveil the truth on the crash that also claimed former First Lady Patricia Shanil Dzimbiri, who was also Chilima’s advisor on women affairs as they were en route to Mzuzu.
That as it may be, the President’s minimal truth began when he indicated in his official announcement of the accident at around midnight, when he included Gloria Mtukule as one of the people who were on the plane from Lilongwe and went missing at around 10:52, heading towards Mzuzu where Chilima was expected to drive with some of the officials to Nkhata Bay to attend one time Attorney General Ralph Kasambara’s burial. Mtukule was Chilima’s wife Mary’s bodyguard and was not aboard the plane.
With the FBU indicating they were only dealing with the technical parts of the accident, it ditches Chakwera into a hole, as the bureau, which was established in 1998, as their report, according to their statement, may only be ready end of August. That is in sharp contrast to what Chakwera assured the nation an investigation independent from the MDF would clear the mist on the crash.
The FBU investigation adds mist to the saga, than clearing it.
Chakwera was yesterday dealt with another blow, as the Chilima’s UTM announced it was pulling out of the Tonse Alliance. Expected as it may be, the announcement came with other jabs, as the central committee of the party resolved the party’s national executive committee will meet on July 16 to discuss the pulling out, and set the date for the party convention, which the central committee proposed for October this year.
The jab is even harder for Chakwera, as his vice Michael Usi will have to chair that NEC meeting. Absent from the CC meet, with UTM youth blocking his Lilongwe Area 12 residence, Usi is seen as the black sheep in the party. Usi said after his inauguration his initial political task in the UTM is to unite the party. Will that be possible, when fellow CC members make decisions, legally, behind his back?
The third blow Chakwera has to come to terms with is that yesterday, UTM leaders called for a complete inquiry into the June 20 plane crash. Through Ben Chilima, friends of the deceased veep like Chikosa Silungwe, echoes for an investigation are clear. They said it at the Bingu National Stadium before Chilima’s burial at his home, Nsipe Ntcheu, a thorough investigation was needed, for closure.
Chakwera, in response, said an investigation independent of the one MDF was carrying out was necessary. “MDF can’t investigate itself,” he said, then.
Civil society leaders, including Human Rights Defenders Coalition leader Gift Trapence indicated in the Malawi press citizens would have to wait for the BUF findings before asking for an independent inquiry.
Now that the Germans have said they were here for their own interests, not the government propaganda, it proves Chakwera has been too sloth. His pace to call to action an inquiry into the Nthungwa clash has been to that of a snail, chameleon and tortoise combined.
On 27 November 2001, musician Evison Matafale died in queer circumstances after authoring a letter against the then president, Bakili Muluzi. But, within a week, Muluzi set up an inquiry into the death which later established the musician had health issues. It further showed officers acted in an overzealous manner to move Matafale from Chileka to Lilongwe in that manner.
Conservatives will incline such inquiries yield nothing, since after the findings, as was the case in the Robert Chasowa case, the culprits are arrested, later released and still roam the streets.
But then, Chakwera faces the final blow, whether or not he institutes an inquiry. One of Muluzi’s rallying points was to institute a Commission of Inquiry into the Mwanza accident. Ten years after that accident, Muluzi used it as a straw to break the MCP back.
In that inquiry, professional pathologists from South Africa examined the exhumed bodies, 10 years later. Their findings informed the Commission, which even interviewed osambitsa maliro a the Mwanza Four.
History, sadly, has a sad character of repeating itself. Chakwera may feel he doesn’t owe the Chilima family an explanation, as did Kamuzu the Mwanza Four, but today, his clearing of the mist on the Chikangawa 9, will point why he must continue his tenure.
