Stop expecting manna from the capital

My Lord, I had every intention of dissecting the current polarisations within the Nyasaland Legislative Council. However, that circus deserves its own full-length feature. One would hope, perhaps naively, that our legislators have the heart of the citizens’ interests in their bones.

Yet, observing the ongoing inquiry into the Sale of Hotel Chisakalime and the partisan fractures within the plane crash investigation, it is clear: these honourable members are not there to defend the flag; they are there to defend their own fortresses. My Lord, allow me instead to return to a truth I have long posited, even if it falls on deaf ears: pinning our collective hopes on politicians to deliver meaningful change is not just optimism; it is a clinical form of madness. A respected global oracle once noted that only broke nations view political leaders as miracle workers.

Nyasaland, my Lord, is the poster child for this delusion. The volume of desperate, prayerful voices in this country rises in direct, pathetic proportion to the number of ballot papers stuffed into boxes. The moment the ink dries on the results, the performance begins.

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We witness that nauseating, predictable procession of opportunists otherwise known as the political scavengers. They don’t swarm the newly appointed authorities to offer service or sacrifice. No, they swarm with their eyes fixed on the State’s dwindling coffers.

“Abwana, musatiiwale kumeneko,” they grovel. They remind the new masters of how they ‘dutifully’ trudged through the political wilderness though most were simply loitering around the political graveyard, waiting for a corpse to feast upon. This is where our collective hallucination is most dangerous.

These newly minted office-holders are instantly labelled ‘job creators’. And yet, they haven’t started a single viable business or attracted a penny of genuine investment. Their only ‘creation’ is the doling out of patronage to party loyalists.

My Lord, we are looking for vision from people who, for years, made no serious attempt to build their own livelihoods. How can we expect the discipline to lead a nation out of poverty from those who couldn’t lead themselves out of mediocrity? So long as Nyasaland remains economically fractured, we will keep gasping for salvation, but in economies that actually breathe, growth is driven by the citizens, not the state.

The people who actually make things happen are the silent, relentless engine of entrepreneurs, innovators, and small-business owners. These people rarely know and frankly, rarely care, about the name of the honourable who thinks they wield more power. They are creating solutions and jobs far from the toxic glare of political patronage.

As Ronald Reagan famously warned, the nine most terrifying words are: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” My Lord, Nyasaland must stop embarrassing itself by expecting salvation to be delivered in a manifesto. Sweet words have never filled an empty stomach. It is high time we put down the protest placards and picked up the tools of our own trade.

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