I usually enjoy driving in the country’s roads during the day, especially the M1 road and on planned trips. But this week I had to travel in an emergency and at night from Kasungu to Blantyre arriving in Blantyre at 2:45am on Monday. One of my challenges with driving at night is the oncoming vehicles. There are quite a few drivers who don’t give dim lights, or take too long to do so after flashing them to oblige. This slows me down. It also wears me out so quickly besides leaving my eyes sore. So when driving at night I just resigned to fate and made it my rule of thumb to drive at between 60 and 90 kilometers per hour even when I could go faster. And many are times when some companions in the vehicle have voiced out their frustration at my slow driving pace. But well, I reckon they have no choice but to put up with my supposedly and annoyingly slow chauffeuring duties.

I had heard about stories of rogues and way-layers and road blockers who put logs, boulders and rocks on the roads at night, especially between Lizulu and Ntcheu boma. When you stop to find out what is happening, or to remove the items, or when you slow down to negotiate your way out, they smash your vehicle and loot it. Some stories making rounds are that the robbers who can be as many as 20 sometimes even attempt to steal your car or aim to kill the passengers in the vehicle.

On April 20 this year, police arrested nine such terrorists at a place called Kachipeya near Lizulu Trading Centre. The police are said to have recovered dangerous weapons including panga knives from the criminals. The law enforcers issued a statement assuring the public of their continued patrols and intelligence gathering along the M1 road in the district to comb the area and rid it of any criminal element.

But I have not heard anything since then about the nine suspects. Are they still in custody? Were they convicted or acquitted? Or are they on bail? The message to my good friends at MPS, especially at Ntcheu Police Station is that the criminals are back on the road doing what they know best with vengeance.

Around 1:30am on Monday this week, I and my wife would have been their next victims at the same place. Of course it was not heavy stones or tree logs they put right in the middle of the road, but what looked like broken pieces of furniture: old chairs, a frame of a wooden bed, etc. Running over them would have been a clear recipe for an accident. But thank God, I was not driving fast and so I managed to drive round the intrusive objects. I further appreciated abiding by my rule of thumb not to cruise at night.

But our fellow motorists who were driving ahead of us in a Prado were not so lucky. This we got to know when we reached Ntcheu Boma. Wanting to stretch our legs after driving non-stop from Lilongwe, we stopped at the Puma service station. There we found the guys who had driven past us at Bembeke.

“How did you pass that place near the primary school where they blocked the road with some objects?” started one of the younger looking of the two men. He must have been in his middle 40s while the other burly man looked well past 65.

Noticing that we were a bit puzzled, the older man chipped in. “They ambushed us as we drove past the area. They hurled stones and objects at us. They have broken the rear mirror. A stone landed at the windscreen and it is cracked. But we did not stop knowing that would have been inviting more trouble.

“As if that is not bad enough, we will spend the night here because we have run out of diesel. But there is a tanker which will be offloading here in the morning.” They both looked dejected and resigned to fate.

We sympathised with the guys and deplored the criminal activities along the M1 road. But we thanked God they had not been harmed.

My impassioned plea to our law enforcers at Ntcheu Police Station: Plan an emergency operation to arrest the remaining gang of robbers near Lizulu. And ensure the nine criminals you arrested in April rot in jail.

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