One of the many things that make Malawi an intriguing place is the existence of some people, who in their excitement to square scores, love to apportion imaginary crimes to people they hate.

For instance crimes bordering on treason have been meted out on ministers and deputy ministers in the previous administration (the so called mid-night six) who addressed a press conference in the late hours of April 6, 2011, giving the impression that the then President Bingu wa Mutharika had not died and, therefore, that the current President Joyce Banda, then Vice President, could not take over as per the Constitution of the Republic.

According to these manufacturers of the charges, the said cabinet members must be tried for treason because they were, by their utterances, preventing the constitutional processes to unravel with Vice President Joyce Banda taking over at State House as President.

We wish matters of law were as straight forward as the wishes of those that coin these charges and apportion them.

In our reckoning, the said midnight six can only be deemed to have been standing in the way of Vice President Joyce Banda if the vacancy in the office of the president was officially confirmed. Without the official confirmation, a vacancy didn’t exist in the office of the President. And without the existence of that vacancy, how did the midnight six prevent Joyce Banda from taking over?

Indeed at the time the midnight six addressed the press, media reports were awash that President Bingu wa Mutharika had died. But do media reports provide the official premise upon which the government or the constitutional machinery must take place? The answer is no.

The record clearly shows that the official confirmation of late Mutharika’s death was made on 7th April, 2011 by Joyce Banda herself at the press conference she held at her then official residence in Area 12, Lilongwe.

And this is what she said: “It has been confirmed that our leader, His Excellency Ngwazi Professor Bingu wa Mutharika is dead. The confirmation has been made by the South African government. Indeed all of you may have heard about the death through media reports. But as government we could not rely and proceed on announcing death of a Head of State based on media reports. We had to wait for official confirmation from South Africa where our leader was flown to. Our South African counterparts have given that confirmation this morning through the Office of the President and Cabinet…”

Later that afternoon, Vice President Joyce Banda was sworn in as President.

Now, from the account of Joyce Banda herself, the vacancy in the Presidency was officially confirmed only after OPC obtained the death confirmation from South Africa on 7th April, 2011 in the morning.

If that’s that case, then how was President Banda prevented from assuming office by the midnight six on 6th April 2011 when there was no vacancy?

If charges of treason are to be made at all, they have to be made to those that were dragging Joyce Banda to become President before there was declaration of a vacancy.

It is these people that were trying to institute a President in an office where there was, at that point, no vacancy.

A commission of inquiry report issued today claims that President Mutharika was confirmed dead by doctors at Kamuzu Central Hospital at 2:30 pm on the same day he collapsed (5th April, 2011) and that this information was communicated to authorities.

To begin with, the commission does not help matters by using ambiguous terms “authorities”. Who is this “authorities”? Are the midnight six the said “authorities”? If they are, why are they not named? If they are not, how could their utterances be deemed to have been pre-emptive as if they were privy to the information that the President had died?

If this is not bad, what is worse is that the credibility of the whole report has been put in doubt by its mere mention that President Banda, who is an interested party both as an aggrieved person and the one who instituted the inquiry, was involved in the work of the commission by helping it out to source a postmortem report from South Africa.

If the President was interacting with the commission in its work, what would have stopped them from twisting some facts to suit an already fixed agenda that some people must be found at fault for preventing her from taking over on the basis that at the time they created the impression that Mutharika was not dead, they were infact already aware he had died?

This could be yet another waste of public money in a fruitless effort to put together a scheme of witch hunt.

Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: