YES PETER MUTHARIKA IS CLUELESS, BUT IS IT HIS FAULT?

Bluntly speaking, I have never found in Peter Mutharika what his supporters say he has.

From the time Project Peter was hatched when his brother was around, he has failed to take charge and meet the ever-hungry expectations of his party supporters and now of the whole population of Malawi.

Before elections we were told of a man who has vast experience on university lecterns. Not only that, irrelevantly we were also informed that Peter owns a law firm that employs more than 600 lawyers somewhere in the United States.

In the midst of all that worship, I was one of the people who wanted to appreciate how such a man can help transform Malawi in any role up until he failed to perform as cabinet minister in all three portfolios his late brother put him in.

My fears started creeping in when during Presidential debates. Peter not only failed to communicate eloquently but did so with very empty and laughable promises.

In case you missed it, one of the craziest electoral promises he made was; 

"When am elected President I will make sure that boys and girls have one partner"

Holy crap, I screamed. Is this man sure of what he is saying or he is just trying to fill the gaps where he can't find proper words? Is he a spiritual leader or a politician?

Come inauguration day, our Peter (with pomp of course) used his first speech to throw around some quotes, sadly in a wrong context and at wrong people.

"I am holding an olive branch in one hand, do not let me drop it" he repeated this one.

Whoever or whatever told him that he was at war with someone misled him. Yes we had a divisive election but no one but Mbendera was to blame. 

So, it made me wonder why the famous Yassir Arafat quote was being used in a situation that has no single similarity with a disputed electoral process.

Six months down the line, Malawians are now realizing that they sowed the wind and they are reaping the whirlwind.

The man with a 600-lawyer firm has been exposed and the country has come to a standstill.

When close to 6,000 teachers go on strike, he still sees no reason to come out as President to address his citizens. Communication of these crucial matters is still left in the hands of P5 civil servants at Capital Hill to answer angry and desperate teachers who have never seen a penny since he became President.

Six months down the line Malawi looks unredeemable and it seems no one has the resolve to drive it.

The President, despite spending most of his time in office, is not coming out clean on what we ought to do as a country to regain our stance and move forward with one purpose.

Malawians need a leader who is going to be honest regardless of how much pain is impending. We need him to take charge, look us in the eye and tell us;

We will hike University fees by 400 percent get ready

We will hike passport fees by 300 percent get ready

Prices of basic goods will go up get ready

Teachers will be paid at some point but not now, get ready

Malawians need honest answers not a cautious approach which only blinds multitudes to believe that things are okay when they are not.

Having said that, I throw all my blame on those who worshipped Mutharika before elections and those who blindly do so today.

The man is simply not what we were told he is. He lacks strong resolve when dealing with delicate matters and he seems slow to devise concrete remedies for an ailing society.

He might not change his approach but surely the bootlickers will keep on. The problem this time around is that he is on the hot seat and Malawians have a chance to rate him on their own.

MUTHARIKA IS PLAYING NAIVE BY BEATIFYING MULUZI, THE KAPOLOMA MAN MUST FACE JUSTICE

As I write, President Mutharika is seated in his comfortable chair playing Russian roulette with one of the most clandestine politicians ever to grace Malawi, Elson Bakili Muluzi.

The likely victim in this duo-roulette is the State President himself. Elson Bakili Muluzi is holding that revolver loaded with one bullet and chances are high that he might raze that it into Mutharika's political flesh with every Malawian watching. The outcome will surely not be a sweet spectacle.

If your political closet is stuffed with knowledge equal to mine, you will agree with me that Bakili is not a simple-minded politician.

Almost all the current prominent politicians, with exception of Peter Mutharika and Lazarus Chakwera, have gone through the political furnace of Muluzi, and he knows how to get around their minds in a single flash.

Weeks ago we heard that the toothless, yet pompous, Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) had returned tens on Bakili's vehicles that were impounded as part of investigations into his alleged embezzlement of K1.7 billion of public money during his rule.

Before we got real answers, Bakili's convoy was cruising past lion gates of Sanjika Palace to meet the State President for what we were told was a courtesy call to discuss some Commonwealth role.

Now the plot thickens in that the Mutharikas are renowned for looking easy to prowl on but they bite hard.

Muluzi must have learnt a lesson when Peter's brother, late Bingu, chameleoned on him only months after winning the 2004 elections. Does the Kapoloma statesman need another bite from the younger Mutharika?

We might be a religious people but when Muluzi features at State House and smiles before the cameras just know that the man from Kapoloma has a motive, a hidden one for that matter.

Do not fear Muluzi the man as you know him. One side of him presents him as a feeble old man struggling with his back and trying to get clean of the infamous K1.7 billion case weighing on his heart.

Behind the scenes he manages to push Atupele to the political front, lets him pour out empty agendas, lose an election while attacking MEC Chairperson and helps him jump into bed with President Mutharika the very next day.

All that Elson Bakili is doing is simply for his own good and sadly President Mutharika seems to miss all this, or should we say he pretends to miss it.

The former President finds his windpipe choking whenever someone mentions the figure 1.7 billion. He knows that is his scar.

Instead of clearing himself through the proper legal channels, Bakili hops from one leader to the other so as to find comfort and sweep his "sins" under the carpet.

He and Mutharika must remember that Presidents are accountable to the citizenry both during their time in office and after it. So if Malawians want to know what happened to their K1.7 billion then even President Mutharika has no mandate to shield a man whose immunity vanished more than ten years ago.

If Muluzi is innocent in this whole thing, then he must face the law and let it clear him not wasting our time trying to become an instant angel.

At the rate we are going, I think an official announcement should be made that Elson Muluzi's charges have been dropped. And thereafter we should stop fighting corruption as a country.

Mr Muluzi, you can dress in a white robe and get beatification from the current regime, but we, THE PEOPLE, need justice to be done.

Only the law, not Peter Mutharika, should forgive Muluzi.

DOES THE WEST HAVE AFRICA'S PERCEPTION ON EBOLA? THAT IS WHERE THEY MISS IT

A part of our continent is under lock. Life, as we know it, has come to a halt.

No schools in session, no normal markets, postponed elections in Liberia, spontaneous quarantines and millions of lost revenue is what best describes the impact of the Ebola epidemic on the Africa continent.

Meeting after meeting of fundraising but little seems to change at the heart of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea's devastated communities.

For eleven months now the West was looking away thinking that this was just another African problem that can be handled within the continental borders.

Only after American citizens contacted the disease did we see US President Barack Obama calling for global response and declaring the epidemic as a threat to world security.

The follow-up reaction has been found wanting with the focus being on stringent checks at some airports in the US, all this after a Liberian man who was diagnosed within America was hospitalised and later died.

I am in total agreement with what World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim, said at the Ebola Crisis High-Level Meeting held in Washington.

He says relying on a strict regime of incoming-flight checking as a way to deal with Ebola is like placing wet towels under your door when the whole house is on fire.

"You've got to put the fire out," he sums it up

The fight must be taken to where it started and a wholesale integrated strategy must be first employed to uproot the problem.

If stakeholders fail to understand the communal life of Africanism and the empathy bonding that comes with it then more Ebola cases will emerge and the response will still be inadequate. This is not about money alone.

Any more delay at this stage might allow the epidemic to spread to other parts of Africa and that will be a complete disaster. Most Africa governments cannot manage to deal with the problem of this magnitude due to poor and underfunded health systems.

Now imagine an Africa with Ebola spread from one end to the other? How many communities would grasp the fact that contact with a terminally ill person or a corpse is a no-no requirement?

What Africa needs in enormous amounts is social propaganda or a complete rethink. Africa needs information on how to handle the disease.

Without being negative about America's intervention, I still believe that empowering local armies, hospital staff and even common people with information, equipment and moral support is enough to get things done.

Thank you for the 4000 troops but 4000 well-informed common people in West Africa can get things done.

I am well reminded of a Liberian girl who improvised plastic bags and used them to cover her mouth, hands and feet in the process saving four of the five members of her family.

Empower Africans because they understand their communal way of life. Empower them with information, give them necessary materials and let them do the job led by their health personnel.

Once again, the fight against Ebola must be intensified in the hot spot (Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone)failing which the impending millions of deaths and an economic backlash of $33 billion by next year are a gazing reality.

AMERICA'S PROJECT ON WORLD PEACE IS A JOKE

One blessing I have as a writer from a Third World country is the space of mind I have to observe global politics without the attachment of emotions (except empathy for the oppressed) or the urge to immediately join the cause to change things.

From the day I witnessed Obama taking oath of office and sending the whole world (mostly Africa) into frenzy up to this moment, I can say without doubt that the man from Kenya has sold an American agenda that has failed to enhance the Free-World brand perception among world citizens across the globe.

My mind takes me back to many months ago when President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, John Kerry, reiterated the need for Syria leader, Bashar Al Assad to go after his government was accused of handling protestors with an iron fist.

Fast forward to now. Assad sits on his throne in Damascus albeit with a country heavily demolished from a 3-year war between government forces and rebels (we are told there are moderate and extremist kinds of rebels, whatever that means)

It is now clear that the new stance taken by Obama to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levante (ISIL) looks like a jerk-knee reaction from a world leader who has run out of options.

Had he dealt with Assad with strong resolve and with world consensus, we would not have been talking of ISIL in the form it is today.

In his 6th year of leadership, Obama is now labeled as a leader who has exposed America's weakness in finishing projects they start. When we thought Obama had come to smoothen the chaos of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the bi-faced man sent drones to Somalia and Pakistan, supervised the fall of Gaddafi, Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak among others.

As if that was not enough, his backroom maneuvering later on ejected Egypt's duly elected leader, Mohammad Morsi, in favour of another military man even after Egyptians had already dealt with militarism during earlier Tahrir Square protests.

It is of no doubt that the America Project is surely easy to launch but almost impossible to finalize and take proper stock.

Look at Libya today, it is in tatters today without any functional central government, Afghanistan remains a cosmetic democracy while Iraq is a shadow of a beautiful and vibrant economy that it was under Saddam Hussein while Syria might be heading towards another brink of chaos.

Furthermore, Ukraine (whose mass protests against a duly elected government were heavily funded by America) has taken a very strange and ugly twist. All in ghe name of democracy.

Hasn't it amazed us enough why every hotspot on the face of the earth has a fingerprint of the world's global police, US of America?

Isn't it now time for institutions that made America what it is on global politics to be restructured and allow other other equally important stakeholders from across the board to participate in bringing world peace?

If we let America retain too much and unnecessary power within the United Nations and NATO then the plot is as well as lost for tranquility in the world.

Even from here, I see a lot of things wrong with how Obama and his America fail to read and decipher the tensions between the Shi'ite and Sunni sectarian divide. But it always seems that America thinks it can solve all problems in the Middle East with a one-cap-fits-all approach.

Now that ISIL is the contemporary problem, Obama speaks as if if and when these extremists are eliminated then everything will fall into place and normalcy will return in Syria and Iraq.

I will still be here to witness when the so-called moderate Syrian rebels US is funding today graduate to another thorn in the flesh of world peace, even more than the current ISIL. And I will be here to write again.

EITHER OUR CABINET MINISTERS ARE DAFT OR THE PRESIDENT IS DESPERATE

I am informed that White House officials have a way of testing the waters or letting the cat out without putting POTUS (President of the United States) at the centre of the show.

If an issue is sensitive and the US government decides to preempt it to the stakeholders, POTUS will invite his most trusted news correspondents from top media organizations and tell them the story as it is, from his own mouth.

Boom, a scoop is achieved and the next hour will see all major media houses quoting a White House official hinting on US sending drones to Republic of North Malawi for instance.

It has been their tradition and they seem to have mastered it. It is safe in their hands and does not defeat the purpose or execution of their policies.

Now back home, all the planning and "calculation" becomes a clip of animation by characters bent on hoodwinking the populace with lies and manipulation.

After planning and brainstorming, information from State house leaks and newspapers lick the leak.

"APM REJECTS MINISTERS PAY RISE" screams one daily followed by hand-clapping from some quarters.

"What a leader, he has stopped a bad move" they chatter among themselves.

Give me my laughing mask, this is the time to laugh.

First, let me remind you countrymen and women that the 100-day moratorium for the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) led government is fast approaching. Six days from now, President Mutharika will have clocked 100 days in office.

It is at this cutting mark that everybody wakes up and starts analysing what has been and has not been done in relation to campaign promises or recurrent government operations.

Fearing that the new Head of State has not done much on defining the path he and his government want to take to emancipate Malawians from dire poverty, his team is panicking and devising ways to start shifting our minds from the real stuff.

By now we know that civil servants will not have their perks hiked by 50 percent as promised haphazardly during campaign period.

Equally, we are now certain that despite massive registration of names in the Cement and Iron sheets Subsidy Programme, His Excellency has distanced himself from the exercise saying those doing this should be arrested. As far as he is concerned the programme is still under incubation and might only kick off sometime next year.

These, and other economy issues, are what Malawians want to hear from their government.

It is at the back of these promises and the agonizing push towards the 100-day traditional deadline that State House officials are bringing in the concerns by cabinet ministers to have their perks upped by some 583 percent.

I am not moved by this story which strangely has found its way onto the front pages of both credible dailies.

From the body and intuitive language, the new cabinet ministers still feel very privileged to have found a way into a lean structure that was put together as a cost-cutting measure in as far as government expenditure is concerned. 

Without trying to negate their personality, they still worship the new President who they are yet to mind-read on how he reacts to those who try sabotage him.

It would be suicidal for such a team to wake up one day and demand astronomical changes to their perks knowing well that this is not the right time to do so. In short it is too early for a lean cabinet to demand insulting figures like those from a leader who seems cautious of public opinion.

However, I understand that when the moratorium ends on August 31, pressure will start mounting on what the President has done to show seriousness of his leadership.

I know we will be told that His Excellency is a visionary leader who reduced the number of cabinet ministers from 32 to 20. 

We will also be reminded of how his lean cabinet is getting greedy by day to a point of demanding an unrealistic perk increment in the face of economic hardships. 

There then we will be told how the visionary leader has curtailed moves by his "greedy" lean cabinet to derail the much touted cost-cutting measures. 

Believe you me, at this juncture the story will start contradicting.

To be safe, I will perceive your Public Relations stunt with a closed heart and I hope you don't repeat such an act in future.

It either puts the cabinet to the leash of public anger or unearths the uneasiness in the First Citizen.