Rough guide to Bingu’s top secret burial site

BY JAMES CHAVULA

To some Malawians, the burial of Bingu wa Mutharika at Mpumulo wa Bata Mausoleum in Thyolo should commence the unearthing of the secrets the fallen dictator lived to conceal during his eight-year reign.

By failing to comply with laws requiring elected office-holders to declare their assets, Mutharika has become a synonym of filthy wealth. This is epitomised by the multi-million dollar Casablanca—meaning White House—at his sprawling Ndata Farm where the marble mausoleum is situated.

NO-GO ZONE UNDER PROBE: BINGU'S NDATA FARM

The stately palace in the tea-growing district has come under public scrutiny lately. During the anti-government protests of July 20 2011, the civil society and concerned citizens petitioned the Mutharika to explain his wealth—especially the opulent manor in the middle of abject poverty which is aptly mirrored by the dilapidated structures and rusty rooftops of Goliati Primary School where the India-trained economist started his academic journey.

ABANDONED RUINS OF BINGU'S  PRIMARY SCHOOL

Just a walk from school’s ruins which expose pupils to innumerable distractions and lurking death, the material comfort of Mutharika’s final place has long been kept under lock and key just to keep away the nosy few who believe in transparency and accountability as key pillars of the democratic dispensation Malawians adopted on June 14 1993.

BINGU'S MARBLE MAUSOLEUM

The nearest lay Malawians have got to the futuristic piece of architecture is a mere gaze at its whitish walls from the newly inaugurated Nansadi-Thyolo Road which used to be guarded by armed police officers and random roadblocks to shield the president’s lavishness from probing eyes.

Just in September last year, Montfort Media journalist Ernest Mahwayo for taking pictures of the mansion, a symbol of the opulence which separate the electorate from their elected leaders.

Exposing the draconian efforts to safeguard the tale of two worlds, the press quoted Police spokesperson Davie Chingwalu as saying they nabbed Mahwayo for conduct likely to cause breach of peace.

While the case was still in court, Chingwalu’s predecessor Willy Mwauluka and Presidential spokesperson Albert Ngomo ordered journalists at the unveiling of the mausoleum, where Mutharika’s first wife Ethel Zvauya is buried, not to take photographs of Mutharika’s imperial retirement home.

A CLOSE VIEW OF BINGU'S  WHITE HOUSE

The two cases have become a picturesque portrait of Mutharika’s allergy to freedom of the press and highhandedness. This striking ingredient of regimes which have more to hide bared its ugly face when Mutharika assented to Section 46 of the penal code which empowers the minister of Information to shut down any publications deemed hostile to his government.

In this regard, the funeral is not only an opportunity for the electorate to see the mocking mansion of their self-centred leader up close, but also a lesson that it is no breach of public peace –but a symbol of oneness—for poor peasants to go near and poke their noses in the magnificence where their leaders nest. Let the inquiry into undeclared assets begin!

Bingu's Death Dates: Only the Truth Shall Set Us Free

BY JAMES CHAVULA

THERE is no more mystifying way to say farewell to a dictator than the confusion which has erupted over President Bingu wa Mutharika’s date of death.

For starters, dictators have this terrifying tendency of cutting a figure of immortals and it was not peculiar that even the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) was caught napping and seemed unsure when Mutharika breathed his last.

NO TRUTH ON BINGU'S CROSS

Even if medics say the fallen dictator was pronounced “clinically dead” on arrival at Kamuzu Central Hospital on April 5, the OPC has been experimenting with several dates just to prove that the president was alive when they airlifted him to South Africa that fateful day.

The OPC took two days to announce Mutharika’s death and has been changing the date of demise willy-nilly. Following their inscriptions on the crosses placed at the head of Mutharika’s casket in the past week, one would get the impression that he died several times between April 5 and 8.

DID BINGU  DIE MANY TIMES
BETWEEN APRIL 5 AND 7 2012?

Recently, they told the nation that Mutharika was officially departed on April 5, yet the cross at his burial on Monday shows he died on April 6. I wish the big brains who preside over boardroom meeting that decide the country’s destiny learnt to tell the whole truth and realised that “clinically dead” simply means “dead and certified as such by a competent medical practitioner".

The confusion over Mutharika’s death is a stinking legacy of a government that is too mean with truth and there is nothing which can stop the brains behind the make-believe tales of Bingu’s death from sexing up such vital statistics as disaster risk assessments and crop estimates to paint the rosy picture our readers love to hear.

OPC WRITING ON THE WALL

To hell with the tongue-twisters! I am afraid, this misinformation and abuse of statistics will not get us anywhere. It will only distort our history and blind us from the truth, the only thing which will set Malawi free from the shackles of dictatorship, disease, poverty and speculation left bu Mutharika.

Maybe all this jazz about death dates is just another metaphorical epitaph to the tyrant who hated the truth throughout the latter days of his reign of terror. Here lies a Nero we will never understand.

Bingu's queues of posthumous truths

  

BY JAMES CHAVULA

AS MALAWIANS  unite in mourning President Bingu wa Mutharika, the queues at the Chinese-built Parliament Building in Lilongwe seem to be a suppressed metaphor of anything between the admiration and dislike that characterised his seven-year reign.

The venue remains a notorious reminder of the unopposed passing of the authoritarian laws hatched by Bingu’s dictatorial regime. The few voices of reason that dared go against the late dictator’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) majority in the House were wiped out with no mercy.

THE QUEUES AT MALAWI PARLIAMENT

However, the long jam outside the magnificent smelting place of a catalogue of what former Justice Minister Henry Phoya dubbed “bad laws” conveys a different message if read side by side with the queues for fuel, forex, drugs and sugar which Bingu’s body bypassed on its way from Kamuzu International Airport to the State House on arrival from South Africa on Sunday.

At worst, the lines make queues for everything the late president has left in short supply—pretty much a symbol of his poor economic and political governance— look as if they were mere rehearsal for his K150 million funeral.

BINGU TAKES THIS ROAD TO MZUZU WEDNESDAY

With such bigger swarms of sombre faces paying their last respects than the motorist who used to wave him away with empty jerry cans every time his siren-singing motorcade sped by fuel  stations, one can only wait to see what happens when his body goes to Mzuzu in the Northern Region where the Reverend Levi Nyondo was unceremoniously arrested and charged with treason for reminding ministers that the then Vice-President Joyce (now president)—not Peter Mutharika—was the rightful heir to the throne in case Bingu was incapacitated, impeached or dead.

Why some mortals are allergic to mentions of death is a subject for another day, but a year is nearly a day in politics. Death is not treason. It is real, for it is bound to happen and it happens to all of us regardless of our social standings.

Bingu’s arrival in Mzuzu on Wednesday is a moment of truth not because the region was the worst hit during the July 20 2011 anti-government protests in which 19 people were shot to death by the police, but the fact that the dictator who cut a figure of immortality is taking his last stroll in the underrated “home of DPP”—and the woman who not too long ago seemed too unlikely to succeed him has already taken over the mantle.

How time flies!

Just last year, Bingu’s close aides were jostling and kneeling for a handshake from his chosen successor, Peter, as well as competing to degrade JB. 

Such was the red-carpet treatment the heir apparent got from cabinet ministers at the funeral of former Health Minister Dr Moses Chirambo that Rev Nyondo of the Livingstonia Synod of the CCAP landed himself in the ongoing trial for speaking against the blatant display of disrespect the newly crowned president was receiving from those who were supposed to be her juniors by far.

 REV NYONDO

The outspoken man-of-the-collar should be feeling vindicated that not even a DPP’s confessed conspiracy to swear in the younger Mutharika could stop the elevation of JB to the high office when it became apparent that Bingu was no more.

While the departed leader in May last year asked Nyondo’s mother church to bury the hatchet, one can only wish the case run to the very end to answer once and for all the lingering questions about the treason and sedition laws that terrorised most opposing voices during Bingu’s rule.

After all that jazz, all I can say is that only when they realise that death is a necessary end will mortal leaders stop living in denial and start respecting people’s will. I wish Bingu had realised this while he was still alive—for Nyondo’s arrest and the July 20 murders take away a significant pool of tears his service to the nation earned.

  

Welcome Bingu, Farewell Flags of Dictatorship

BY JAMES CHAVULA

The body of president Bingu wa Mutharika arrived at Kamuzu International Airport in Lilongwe on Sunday for a funeral spree which will cost overtaxed Malawians K150 million (about $800 000).

No offence to 78-year-old Mutharika, the homecoming of his remains from South Africa makes a few of us remember the rising-sun flag which he pulled down and outlawed against majority will in 2010.

MUTHARIKA BLANKETED IN HIS CLOTH OF DICTATORSHIP

As per tradition, the casket carrying the fallen dictator was draped in the full-sun cloth that replaced the black-red-green flag of new dawn. 


With only chiefs consulted amid public outcry, the deceased campaigned vigorously for the red-black-green flag conceived to mirror the country’s phenomenal shift from poverty to prosperity—a “miracle achieved” or “works of my hands”, he used to say. Change is nothing without benefiting the poorest of the poor.

CHIEFS AND MUTHARIKA'S CLOTH 

So, ask not how many queues—for sugar, fuel, forex, drugs and other essential things—the casket in the “flag of prosperity” bypassed before it lied in state at the New State House in the capital where the national tour starts.

Instead, ask how many of the onlookers will be pleased to see the imposed feel-good flag live after Mutharika, especially because he has left the country much poorer than he found it in 2004.

TIME TO REVERT TO THE RED SUN OF NEW DAWN

Of course, Mutharika’s successor, Joyce Banda, last year said it all with seriousness: “The ‘flag of Mutharika’s dictatorship’ will be the first thing to change if I assume the presidency in 2014 General Elections”. Now that nature has allowed the dictator’s fate to pave the way for Her Excellency, JB might as well use this as an early opportunity to give lovers of democracy a reason to celebrate the promised change, including the reversion to the abolished flag which used to keep Malawians hoping and working hard all day every day.

And who knows, the burial of Mutharika on April 23 2012 may be the last we see the stinking symbol of “one man’s battle against the nation”. This is my simple prayer: May all icons of the repressive regime be reversed with no reverence for the dead.

Let the Dead Bury the Dead

BY JAMES CHAVULA

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci reminds us that when we think we are living we forget that we are learning how to die. While William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar concurs that death is a necessary end, I dare add that the way the dead are mourned mirrors how they lived to the inevitable end.

In my life, there are two contrasting personalities whose deaths evoked no teardrop because they neither gave nor begged sympathy in their last days: One was a street robber in Lilongwe’s Area 23 Township and another President Bingu wa Mutharika who died at his opulent palace in the same city.

If you live an inconsiderate life...

For starters, the Area 23 unknown was notorious for ambushing, hacking and killing people for money, mobile phones and other valuables. In 2009, the wanted man was stabbed to death by his fellow gangsters after they reportedly disagreed over spoils of their bloody missions. Contrary to exaggerated respect the dead get in Malawi, news of his death was greeted with shouts of joy, songs, ululation and a carnival of chants in the township he lived to terrorise. By 6am on the day of burial, residents who never attended funerals were already at the Gologota cemetery, digging an abyssal grave just to make sure he was out of reach. In no time, people literally run Catherine Chikwakwa-style to the graveyard with his coffin on their shoulders and victorious chants on their lips just to ensure he was gone fast and for good.

FLAG OF AUTOCRACY:  MUTHARIKA

Fast-forward to the death of Mutharika (1934-2012), who introduced draconian laws, arbitrary arrests, pro-rich economic prescriptions, undiplomatic foreign policy, uncurbed corruption and other notorious policies in this republic.

Likewise, the death of the despot was welcomed with eagerness, hooting, trumpeting partying and other several ways Malawians use to express jubilation.

This is a stern antonym of the rehearsed parting shot North Koreans accorded their leader Kim Jong-il who, like Mutharika, died of heart attack.

But, Like the Area 23 thug, Mutharika exacted the wrath of the people. His brew of high-handedness and litany of despotism is clear in the petition Malawians presented during the July 20, 2011 protests in which 19 people were gunned down by police officers.

As the mourning period continues, Orga Kent and Orga Rex One of Zambia’s music group Organised Family told the writer they were dismayed that Malawians were rejoicing in Mutharika’s death when Zambians united in grief during the death of President Levi Mwanawasa.

In the streets of Malawi, the only semblance of sombre tribute to the hard-hearted ruler involved dreary dirges on the state-run Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) after Mutharika’s successor, President Joyce Banda (JB), declared 10 days of mourning. Elsewhere, Malawi’s two-year-old “full-sun” flag—a nagging symbol of the fallen president’s sworn defiance of public views—is flying at half mast in his honour.

 FLAGS OF NEW DAWN FLY AGAIN

Ordinarily, death of people who have served their country should not be a subject of sorrow, but a grand celebration of their contributions. However, lovers of democracy are flying the “outlawed flag of the new dawn” at full mast because dictators must be despised with the cruel terms to subjugate the defenceless masses.

If the country is serious about entrenching the culture of democracy, we must never cease to be sick and tired of dictators even after their death.

Despite the never-say-bad-about-the-dead culture, Mutharika’s death says a lot about itself. As musician Lucius Banda said in an exclusive interview, let this be a lesson that the creator will not stand aside and look when a ruthless push becomes a relentless show.

“God takes over when his people have completely failed to surmount our oppressor,” says Lucius.

Typical of dictators, Mutharika might have forgotten that there was a greater power sides with the powerless when his push ruthless became a relentless shove.

If you want to weep for a tyrant worse than Dr Kamuzu Banda’s one-party regime, it is your funeral.

In tears, no half a story true is told. Like a pencil appears bent or broken when immersed in water, tears only impair human sight and soak hearts to sing a dirges, eulogies and epics of praise even for those who never cared about our cry in the first place.

LET THE DEAD BURY THE DEAD: TOSH

So, I would rather keep my eyes dry and free from refracted rays. I can forgive the hands that wrought these wounds in my heart. I am Malawian and Christian, but how can I forget when the scars are indelible?

As a matter of fact, the body is singing Lucius Banda’s Mabala because “kukhuluka ndiye takhululuka koma mabala ndiye akupweteka”, but the soul replaying Peter Tosh’s Burial: “Let the dead bury the dead, I am a living man [and] I have work to do”.

My humble duty is to provide checks and balances to the new government just to ensure we do not slide back to the dark days of “one man against the nation” witnessed in Mutharika’s reign.

In this spirit, I dedicate Saleta Phiri’s Zinthu Zasintha Koma Malamulo Sanasinthe to President JB. While the euphoria of Mutharika’s death and birth of a renewed republic still lasts, let Her Excellency start reversing the backlog of the oppressive laws and other icons of Mutharika’s disrespect of majority will.

MBC Mess, JB’s last laugh

BY JAMES CHAVULA

The death of president Bingu wa Mutharika has left Malawi on a fast lane of breaking news–-and Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) must negotiate a range of tricky mountains to catch up with its privately owned competitors.

Not that this is unusual.  But if you are a journalist, there will be nothing more compelling and fulfilling than being in the forefront to cover newsworthy occurrences of this magnitude as they unfold. Like Christians carry their crosses and follow Jesus, the media-–including MBC Television and radio –were supposed to shoulder their newsgathering gadgets and follow the president’s condition while it was still hot and relevant.

But if you work for MBC, you will snore and expect to be rewarded handsomely for sitting on the laurels and pretending that nothing thunderous is happening under your nose. This business-as-usual mindset is one of the major tragedies of state broadcasters which are heavily nursed by the same taxpayers they constantly starve of information.

MESSY BROADCASTING COUP...MBC Headquarters --photograph The Nation, Malawi

Inertia, rigidity...outrun

This time, it was loud and clear in the blank screen, stale bulletins and spates of silence MBC television and radios continued to air when private and international press were following leads to prove that Mutharika was not alive on arrival at Kamuzu Central Hospitals’ intensive care unit in a comatose.

When all eyes of the private and international news hawks were on the referral hospital which had no life-saving dose of Calcium Gluconate for the fallen president, MBC crew was caged in their studios, probably scripting the Road to 2014 or Makiyolobasi which help nobody apart from sowing seeds of division and painting a false picture that all is well in the underdeveloped republic of ours.

When ETV was broadcasting the latest visuals of the president’s death from Milpark Hospital in South Africa, MBC TV could only run a scroll line saying the president was rushed to some hospital after falling ill. Why the hospital was anonymous is no state secret any sane media house keeps in this information age.

The fact that there was no motion picture or substantive word on the president’s condition and whereabouts may be a hint that the state media was locked in the usual ministerial ribbon-cutting functions and corporate donation ceremonies which make its news bulletins table-and-chair catalogues of praise and worship for ruling parties.

On Friday, when Gospel Kazako’s Zodiak Broadcasting Station (BBC) was quoting BBC, CNN, ETV, Al Jazeera and other credible international media outlets as confirming that the Malawi leader was no more, MBC TV struck off its 8pm bulletin as if there was nothing to write about.

Loud and clear against JB: Kaliati 

Taking sides

At 10.15pm, the only time the so-called “station for the nation” aired something in tune with the tension and speculation which had engulfed the nation on Friday, all their cameras and microphones were on the loud Minister of Information Patricia Kaliati stating with all her might and conviction that there was no vacancy in the presidency. The minister said it was too wishful of the then vice-president Joyce  Banda (now President) to think she was an the automatic successor of Mutharika.  In the reasoning of Kaliati and her conspiratorial cabinet team –Vuwa Kaunda, Jean Kalilani, Kondani Nakhumwa, Nicholas Dausi and Henry Mussa – JB's  claim to the throne vanished the day she was booted out of their Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on flimsy accusation of establishing a parallel structure to topple Mutharka.

By Saturday morning, Deputy Minister of Transport and Public Infrastructure Catherine Gotani Hara told ZBS that five ministers were conning cabinet to ensure Peter Mutharika succeeded his kid brother.  The schemers behind the nocturnal press briefing may as well be the crew which was conspiring to do away with JB, who took over the presidency later the same day.

While the law society wants the ministerial cartoons prosecuted for convening cabinet without legal authority and contempt of constitutional stipulations on succession, questions remain unanswered as to why MBC aired the Kaliatis’ reaction to JB's  earlier address which it did not broadcast in the first place.

Hail Her Excellency: JB takes over presidency

Conspiracy against JB

This might have been expected where the whole Office of President and Cabinet (OPC) took three days to announce death of leader. However, it is no coincidence at the national broadcasting house where everybody from the chief executive officer to the floor engineer has spent the past two years ridiculing JB left, right and centre.

The fact that Her Excellency’s first authoritative national address was only aired belatedly after the army had circled the broadcasting house to ensure bloodless transition from one civilian rule to another subtly makes MBC an accomplice to the failed ministerial attempt to disturb constitutional order.

In perpetuating the protracted blackout which was supposed to die with Mutharika on Thursday morning, MBC did not just deprive its archives of historical clips of the last strides of the country’s third president. They kept vital information out of reach of its listenership at a time private and international press  left the nation divided and guessing on the fate of the beloved ‘hosptalised ‘ leader. Most affected were the rural folks at the late president’s home, Goliati in Thyolo and many others who turn to MBC to confirm what they encounter on other radios and newspapers.

This tendency of pitching the cameras and microphone away from ‘politically incorrect’ newsmakers, started with the emergence of queues for fuels, forex, medical drugs and sugar –a tormenting face of Mutharika’s poor political and economic governance.

But with the blackout accorded to Mutharika’s death and JB's  road to presidency, MBC lost its marketing tagline as a reliable news source with nationwide coverage to ZBS, who offered live and consistent broadcasts of information until power changed hands without any bloodshed.

Even if the airwaves of government media houses are barbed with massive unwritten restrictions and exaggerated self-censorship, MBC can no longer continue broadcasting to its covert political friends and schemers. Too long the broadcaster has been lost in the air “creating a world of possibilities” for the ruling parties. The end of Mutharika’s rule is a call to come down to earth and revert to informing, educating and entertaining the nation which is its first and foremost mission under the Communication Act.

And if MBC management were part of the infamous conspiracy to prevent JB’s takeover, there are no awards for guessing who will take leave when tables start turning to the tune of the new government which they took pride in denouncing. DPP mouthpieces at the broadcasting house should pray for JB to live up to her promise to desist from vengeance, but reconciliation should and must not include taking aboard mediocrity and political puppets who add no value to nation-building.

Malawi journalists march for press freedom--photo: The Nation

Opening the airwaves....JB’s humble duty

Adages have it that those who laugh last laugh best. However, the new president’s job does not start and end at getting rid of DPP plants and other undesirable elements at MBC –and other politically-hijacked public institutions that are relentlessly underperforming.

Having suffered a firsthand feel of a politically biased State media, the president must hasten to put in place legislation and policies that will not only open MBC airwaves to all Malawians, but also guarantee free, fair, accurate, balanced and complete coverage of issues of national importance.

This is the task even opposition parties have always avoided because they feel they cannot do without the broadcaster’s praise and worship when they win the presidency, but change is a must – if we are sick and tired of the grim chapter of mudslinging and lawsuits Her Excellency endured.

In any case, it would be unwise for President JB to think she will have the private media on her side for eternity. When the mourning and honeymoon is over, the private media will have to go back to their watchdog role and start offering clinical scrutiny of government decisions if they are going to remain relevant to the post-Mutharika Malawi. 

Functions of the fourth estate entail providing checks and balances as well as pointing out the ruinous impact of government’s decisions –for no media house can afford to die like a myriad of pre-referendum newspapers which were intoxicated with celebrating their contribution to the transition from founding president Kamuzu Banda’s one-party dictatorship to the multiparty democracy both Mutharika and MBC tried to demolish.

Therefore, it is with measured caution and great anticipation that I lament MBC’s despicable state and welcome Her Excellency to the hot seat at a time Malawians and development partners have lost confidence in the country’s political and economic ratings.

Malawi: No Wine in the Warm Cana of Africa

BY JAMES CHAVULA

When I hear the Minister of Lipstick and Lip Service on radio, I am often struck by images of a primary school teacher likely to cheat—not teach— pupils that the adjective of walk is ‘walkative’. 

With a legacy of broken sentences and misplaced phrases, the loud minister accords grammar students and teachers fast-forward examples of what not to do in the queen’s language.

MIRRORS AND SILVER SCREEN -by Vic Kasinja, BNL

 If you encounter her on what is supposed to be the television station for the nation, you will think she spends all her time standing before the mirror and embalming herself with make-up where she can do with less and less.

She may require more time with grammar books than glamour and looks, but her quotations in newspapers show that not all her leisure time is wasted by things of the world.

While you blame the appointing authority for making such a primary school teacher head of the lip service department at the expense of more proven and University-certified orators at his disposal, the lipstick mouth has learned to recite the word of God and it appears it is time she got a bachelors of divinities degree for all wrong reasons.

TALK OF WEDDINGS AND CANA  -by getty/afp 

In the newfound collar, the lip servant of the dirty game recently dared ministers of the word to stop writing pastoral letters and start offering solutions to plagues in this Egypt in dire need of a better Moses.

Behold the minister of lip service said unto God’s servants who are yet to get the K1 million her boss promised: “We expect them (the clergy) to understand the Bible better.  When Jesus Christ went to a wedding at Cana and was told that there no wine, he did not write a pastoral letter. [However] he turned water into wine.”

Being a busy bee when it comes to refuting this and spinning that, the lipstick minister should be commended for holding steadfast to the holy book up to what is generally accepted as Jesus’ first miracle. However, reading on could have been more enlightening.

MORE WINE AT CANA -photo:wikipictures 

In her analogy, the biblical Cana is what used to be the Warm Heart of Africa. Therefore, the empty wine skins constitute sugarless shops, drug-denied hospitals, empty fuel pumps, forex-strapped government and any service station where you queue for nothing at the end of the long wait.

However, the reprimanded ministers of the word are no Jesus in this land of empty skins. Like citizens stand in line for everything, they have not forgotten bracing the sun to elect a jesus whose duty is first and foremost to ensure constant supply of basic needs.

By writing the letters, the ministers of the Word are only calling on the chosen one not only to start keeping promises, but also acting on well-chronicled problems which have become highlights of dialogue for more talk than action.

Although the warm-hearted people seem to know their jesus and continue investing their faith in him at a time wine skins are getting drastically dry, he is either rude or surrounded by lips that are twice as much 

that the masses would get insults for answers if they squarely confronted him with empty skins that he ought to see and fill by powers vested in him.

Forexwards, the mortal jesus and his lip service department would not hesitate to blame the devil East or West for licking the dollar, euros, rands, pulas and shillings from his central bank’s vaults.

Amid murmurs of fuel shortage, the department cannot just stomach those stuck in dry pump stations to continue tarnishing the holy name of their wise and dynamic jesus.  As it has always been, plans are underway to build petroleum reservoirs which will halt the problem forever and ever more.

But ask not whether it is wise or dynamic for the hungry to build silos when they cannot afford a plateful of grain, but what the lips at your service would say if you complained about sugar scarcity.

“Behold,” she would rant, “verily, verily, the scarcity and rising prices are a blessing in disguise because medical surveys shows people are dying because they don’t know sugar is no sweet. It brings heart pressure, diabetes, high blood disease and kwashiorkor, blah blah blah!”

By the time you take the water you boiled for tea to the bathroom, you would have forgotten that when the Ngwazi in heaven said human kind shall not leave by bread alone, he did not mean you can live without sugar when you have money and hunger for it.

In the end, you can only imagine what this jesus would have said if they told him there was no wine at the wedding. Go to hell? Stupid? Colonial puppets? Satan is on our backs?

Your guess may not be as good as mine, but his lip service team would surely hasten to remind the best man, chief marshal and organising committee that the scarcity of wine does not affect the guests from the village.

On a lighter note, who would have the temerity to tell the militant spokespersons of jesus that even the people who gulp gallons of home-made gin deserve festive wine once in a while?

Maybe the lipstick minister’s master is just jesus Matiki or no Jesus at all. Maybe the clergy and other letter-writing activists are the way, the torch and the light.

That way, the lipstick minister and his team should stop living in denial and learn to oblige when emerging jesuses tell them to fill the skins with water—for with acceptance and faith, impossibilities are miracles.

One can only wish the Minister of Lipstick and the Lip Service rose from pompous slumber while the empty wine skins still have the potential to become wells of fuel, vaults of forex and bales of granulated sugar.

But it is not every one’s tongue that is both a pastor and a politician. And a tongue so loud and mischievous breeds a marvelous villain.