December 22 2022

It is a queer date today. 22-12-22. So, the thoughts may be queer as well. Wait a minute, as of Thursday, 410 people have died to cholera this year. This must be a record in many ages.

What more can we expect when people are drinking from heavily polluted water sources? People, mostly in peri-urban areas where the disease is hitting most, people are drinking and washing utensils with water that is contaminated with foecal matter, and no one seems to care.

As the water and cholera woes present themselves in our sight, we need not remind each other of the incessant blackouts. We already have too much on our plate. Mind you, it is not nsima in our plate for that has become the Holy Grail in our levity. The International Food Policy has just announced the record high price of maize at an average of K543 per kilogramme which translates into K27 150 per 50kg bag.

This is the very dream of eating thrice a day! Or, is it the reality?

The year draws on a close. Forget that promise President Lazarus Chakwera made at the peak of his campaign trail, that a 50kg bag of fertiliser will be bought at K14 000 n’kathu. That dream has materialised and here we are coughing at least K70 000. Oh what a dream!

Chakwera told us that he would change the way of doing things. The promise was he would hit the ground running to fight corruption, deal with nepotism and combat disorder.

Yet, things remain the same, in spite of the change we believed in. Look, do members of the board parastatals bring any sanity to the organisations when they are chosen based on petty cronyism and appeasement, instead of professionalism. Is it any surprising that parastatals like Admarc and Escom continue to be nothing but performers? When was the last time a new book made it into the National Library Service?

The journey continues.

Watching Chakwera at the National Day of Prayer service, you have a picture of a prayerful leader. Get it right, I believe in prayer as a powerful tool but I also strongly hold the belief that prayer without action is nothing but noise. Why do you think Jesus had to smear a paste of mud in the eyes of the man he was healing of blindness?

The problems Malawi is facing today can’t be wished away, neither can they vanish with prayers conducted during business hours. What is the point in having so many people wasting man hours what they could have done behind closed doors where only our listening God will hear their cries. Oh Lord, rebuke me not in anger!

It is self-evident, that Malawi is not necessarily a God-fearing nation, it is one that fears God. Yes, a nation that hides its face in God’s presence.

By the way, in the United States of America, most of its citizens do not know the lines of the other verses of their national anthem The Star-spangled Banner. Who are we to murmur all the three verses of the hymn from which the national anthem is derived?

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