Secrecy, along with misinformation and disinformation, is the one tool that successive Malawi governments have used to control public opinion, giving the leaders a leeway to make weird decisions that have sometimes immobilised the nation.

For some time now, citizens have called for openness on the abuse and murder of persons with albinism but executively ordered investigations and pledged transparency have not been delivered.

Not that the truth is unknown, but there is a guarded conspiracy of silence to keep dealings shrouded in mystery.

Recently, President Lazarus Chakwera swore publicly to conceal findings of the public sector reforms and systems investigations that the very presidency commissioned because “it is not for public consumption” but a reference document for his administration.

Quite sad and not exactly logical. Nothing is as public as a rationale for reform such as this report. Indeed, for a government like Tonse, put in power on a reform and transformation platform, such secrecy is not only an ideological contradiction, it is hugely counterproductive and shamelessly retrogressive.

Routinely, leaders have attempted to manipulate the law with the help of captive opportunistic experts serving a political elite bent on pleasing for personal gains rather than accountability to the people.

However, the wise do advise that the liberties of a people are insecure when leaders’ transactions are concealed from them. Former US president John F Kennedy once said the very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free society as it is associated with dictatorships while the best weapon in a liberal democracy is openness. Kennedy further notes that a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation afraid of its people.

According to President Woodrow Wilson, government ought to be “all outside and no inside” by practice. Secrecy is the lynchpin of abuse of power and transparency, the only real antidote. Everybody knows that corruption thrives is secret places, and avoids public places, and we believe it is a fair presumption that secrecy means impropriety, Wilson concludes.

Secrecy and a free, democratic government never mix, declares former US president Harry Truman. Secrecy is an instrument of conspiracy, and ought never to be the system of a regular government, warns Jeremy Bentham.

Except perhaps in ‘deep matters’ of State, secrecy is an enemy of efficiency. It only breeds incompetence because where there is failure, the failure is kept secret. Secrecy is a vacuum and nothing fills a vacuum like paranoid speculation, which inevitably rattles government, and generates unnecessary toxic narratives.

To American lobbyist, lawyer and Democratic Party politician Christopher Dodd, secrecy might come from the best motives, but as it grows, it begins to exist only for itself, only for its own sake, only to cover its own heinous abuses and corrupt acts. Secrecy sets barriers and alienates people from their leaders, excluding citizens from participation.

Until nations achieve a healthy relationship between leaders, citizens and truth, people are right to remain suspicious, contemptuous even, of the secrecy and misinformation peddled by politicians and official media.

Good government should build the supports for an era of openness that is already upon us, urges American politician and diplomat Patrick Moynihan. The sad truth is that secrecy, once accepted, becomes an addiction.

Ultimately, challenges former US Senator the late Russell Long, government by secrecy benefits no one. It harms the people that it seeks to serve and undermines government’s integrity and operations. Secrecy breeds distrust, dampens public enthusiasm and mocks public loyalty.

You see, when information which legitimately belongs to the public is systematically withheld by those in power, the people soon become ignorant of their own affairs, distrustful of those who manage them, and eventually incapable of determining their own destinies. And this is constitutionally criminal!

My greatest fear is that secrecy not only begets tyranny, it destroys accountability because it creates a monopoly of knowledge and estranges people to prospects of popular participation.

Effectively, Malawians don’t know what Vice-President Saulos Chilima proposed should change, so how do they monitor what affects them?

My last word: democracy is power to the people, don’t take us back Mr President.

Respectfully submitted.

The post No secrecy, Mr President first appeared on The Nation Online.