Predictability fashions vulnerability. Vulnerability is the
powerhouse of despotism and corruption. Clarified, it is only when an
individual gains insights about the thinking mode and activities of another
will that individual have most advantage over the other. And because is certain
of the vulnerability of the other will that individual have the potent arsenal over
the other, and will thus do as they please.
The above becomes readily understandable when applied to
politics—the game of deception, derailment, and death. And it is exactly to
politics that this phenomenon seems to make the most sense. Politics happens to
be an area of life where a person’s values can best be tested and judged. Surprisingly,
the changes in values here have almost always been from good to bad and rarely
the other way round. No wonder then that
heroes in society become villains in politics.
You might ask: why do heroes become villains when they join
politics? The answer is predictability, simple huh!! That is true in the
Western world as it is true in Malawi. In Malawi, for example, the good late
Ngwazi Hastings Kamuzu Banda “talked with bows” against the “stupid federation”
but later became the epitome of totalitarianism.
Ex-president Bakili Muluzi brought multiparty democracy but
ruined the economy through get-but-if-caught-don’t-fingurepoint policies and
politics of hand-outs. And then came the late Bingu wa Mutharika, the then
modern-day Messiah, who came as a saint but later lost direction. The same
trend can be seen in President Joyce Banda. So, it is not about the leaders but
the predictability of the led.
Let’s accept it, Malawians are predictable when it comes to
voicing out our concerns. What we know as a nation is simply bleat about few
squeaks of anger and everything is back to normal.
That’s why the hype about late Bingu’s assets is a
self-diffusing bomb; set and never to explode, and only losing potency for
explosion with time. If one is in doubt about this, then time is the best
doubt-killer; watch and observe.
Self-acclaimed social and political activists have voiced
their disenchantment with the revelations about late Bingu’s assets. Empowered
by the momentum of the recency of the revelation, opposition political party
leaders, civil society organization leaders, the faith community, and every
Fatima and Farook spoke their mind. The talk has largely centered on the
time-discrepancy as it is reported that late Bingu wa Mutharika had MK150
million in 2004 and his assets are presently valued at MK61 billion.
However, one wonders the centrality of the time-discrepancy
in the trending MK61 issue. To this author, and perhaps to many
like-minded Malawians, the issue here should less about the time but about the
system.
Given the fact that we Malawians are predictable as we are
better at talking than taking action and thus vulnerable to elements of
corruption, the dominant thinking should be what it is that has to be done to
control leaders from corrupt practices. Indeed there have to be internal
mechanisms to do that. One of such is the constitution. The constitution,
however, is well known for its loopholes, and it will thus be helpful if our
patriot Malawians in the legal fraternity assisted in the tightening of these loopholes.
The other alternative could be taking the issue with the
courts to provide the necessary case law needed for future legal decision. And
as predictably silent as we are, it is doubtful that there can emerge a
personal, singly moved by national other than political interests, to take up
the MK61 billion late wa Mutharika estate to courts.
Otherwise, as things are, it only takes leaders’ moral purity
not to indulge in corrupt practices—something highly precarious. To this
effect, we would not expect leaders to raise the moral campus and refrain from
stealing from government coffers, but leaders would not do that knowing very
well that the laws of the land will hunt them down. We will not expect president
to call for people to probe their assets, as has done President Joyce Banda,
but will do the probing themselves knowing pretty well that’s what the laws
requires.
Sadly, as things are now and as are the discussions in the
papers and the social sites about late Bingu wa Mutharika’s MK61 billion,
nothing is set to be done on the ground. Thus, when all is said and done, there
clearly will be more things said than done.
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