Unhappy New Year, 2026. We are reluctant to wish you prosperity, for we see none ahead. Inflation, prices and taxes are shooting through the roof.
Brace yourself for a grimmer year. Those who have followed us from time immemorial know us as a buoyant expedition, full of positive energy and an appreciative mindset. We have always tried to see good and greatness where others see only failure and weakness.
We inject humour and hope into difficult situations to lift the spirits of the sick and the downtrodden. We do not wish to be associated with despair. However, this year— even we—have reached an unavoidable conclusion: Malawi is a failed state.
[paywall]
Even if God, Allah, Jah Rastafari, Mbona, Chisumphi, Chata or Chiuta were to descend in person to rescue Malawi from its self-inflicted collapse, they would not succeed. Only a failed state—and its citizens—believes it is normal for a country to exist permanently in a “planning” phase. Malawi has tonnes upon tonnes of development plans.
Had successive governments built on the foundations laid by their predecessors, the country would look very different today. Instead, in Malawi, the will of the President—not national priorities—becomes policy and is implemented at the expense of continuity. Only in a failed state do people accept that a city can go without electricity or water for days, sometimes weeks.
If you doubt this, visit Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) offices in Lilongwe. Some people have waited up to 16 weeks after lodging fault reports. Only those willing to pay bribes receive assistance.
Ordinary citizens have stopped reporting outages altogether. They have learned to smile through failure. Power providers in a failed state do not even feel obliged to apologise.
In a failed State, electricity is a luxury. More than 60 years after independence—after our ancestors shed blood to free this land—mains electricity still does not reach 85 percent of our narrow country. Even where the grid exists, power is unavailable nearly half the time.
This is what failure looks like. Monkeys, hippos, lions, dry spells, floods, lack of sunshine, sand, weeds, clouds, mwera and vuma winds— and even witchcraft—have all been blamed for the failures of Escom and Electricity Generation Company. Never human incompetence.
Failed states externalise blame while refusing accountability. Even street lighting follows elitist patterns. Only in failed states does no one apologise or provide alternatives when water systems collapse.
Water boards shamelessly bill consumers for water never supplied—and citizens quietly pay. Ours is a failed state. Malawi is a failed state, we repeat, because only in a failed state are property owners threatened with closure for failing to pay land rates when city authorities have never bothered to gravel access roads or collect rubbish—for over 31 years.
During the first three decades of independence, government trucks regularly col l e c ted re f use f rom Ndi rande, Ch ilomoni, Chilobwe, Bangwe, Chemusa and other townships. Today, in failed Malawi, only areas like Nyambadwe and BCA matter. Their rubbish is collected— only to be dumped near Kachere, where heaps now compete with nearby Mpingwe Hill.
If you doubt us, check when garbage was last collected in Area 25, Area 36 and Kawale in Lilongwe, or Zolozolo, Luwinga and Masasa (Geisha) in Mzuzu. Has the container at Kamuzu Road in Salima been emptied? What about Karonga?
Failed nation. Failed state. Failed Malawi.
While functional states treat electricity as a human right, a failed state refuses even to learn from Rwanda, which plans to build its own nuclear power station. Instead, failed states obsess over buying—and stealing—the same agricultural tractors, introducing ghost workers into the Integrated Financial Management Information System and election servers, looting the Treasury and rigging votes.
[/paywall]
