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!