Malawi’s first president Hastings
Kamuzu Banda made it an open secret that food security was the only highway to
a prosperous nation. Reading from the history books Banda demonstrated full
familiarity on what agriculture productivity could do in transforming the lives
of people and in turn improve the economic worth of a country such as Malawi which
over half of its population is illiterate.
When recounting her fond memories of Banda’s
leadership style, my grandmother’s (now in her 70s) tales are never short of a Chichewa
phrase which says’chuma chili munthaka’
which literally means there are hidden treasures underneath the soil.
I am told this was one of Banda’s favorite
catchphrases as a way of encouraging Malawians to keep working hard in their
fields. It was there and then when the country docketed tobacco as its very own
green gold being the highest foreign currency earner of all times.
However, during one of my recent
online escapades I stumbled onto the World Food Program (WFP) website. I will
not say that what I saw was a shocker but rather infuriating and got me
thinking.
The WFP reports that 60 percent of
adult Malawians suffered from stunting during their early years of life representing
about 4.5 Million people of working age. To me anyone in this age bracket must have
been a child during Banda’s reign.
An indication that some of the
problems we are suffering today, in themselves have a long standing history
too.
Realistically I was not dazed because
I know Malawi has always ranked as one of the poorest countries in the world
and that it has had a not-so-very-good reputation in terms of nutrition for its
people.
Presently the stunting rate for children
under the age of five is perched at 42 percent. “With little improvements seen
over the past decades,” bluntly states the overview report.
The statistics provoked the rage deep
within me, to me they just sound ridiculous and intolerable thereby crowding my
mind with millions of questions demanding answers from each one of us let alone
our political leadership.
My argument is simple; how does a
country boasting of slightly over five decades of self-rule fail to produce
enough food for an average household?
Talk of over 2 Million malnourished
children in this 21st Century, this means as a country we are raising yet
another chunk of Millions of unproductive adults for the next two decades who,
ironically, will have nothing better to offer to the nation but rather continue
to suck from its so called ‘insufficient resources’.
It is estimated for instance that MWK
16.5 billion (US$67 million) was lost in the year 2012 due to the reduced
productivity of those who were stunted as children.
To any sane and patriotic Malawian
this development should be mind baffling and cause for worry. One should wonder
why and how a nation boasting of 50 plus years of independence is managing to
raise malnourished generations and seems not to be diverting from the track
anytime soon.
Perhaps, we have had our priorities
laid upside down long enough such that we have all been blinded by the status
quo we have created.
We cannot afford to continue on this
path. For every well-wishing Malawian it
is high time we turned the tables and saved the face of our beloved nation from
this soiled reputation.
Malawi boasts of a long history of
peace, which means as a country internal conflicts would never make it to the
list of excuses for our well prolonged starvation and malnutrition.
The bad picture we have painted for
ourselves as a nation that fails to feed its own people is really appalling.
Such that it now sounds more of a
mockery to say the country is endowed with natural resources such as fresh
waters and has one huge and cheap labor force ever imagined.
Statements like one above, serve to
expose the folly of an entire nation that fails to utilize even the readily
available resources for the good of its own people.
Former United Nations secretary
General Kofi Annan once said “we have all the means and capacity to deal with
our problems, if only we can find the political will.”
I share Annan’s sentiment for all the
right reasons. Our political leaders
have been nothing more but mere frustration and a disappointment to the people
they claim to serve.
In my reasonable number of years of
existence I have witnessed a political leadership that has proved devoid
of any political zeal to improve productivity of its people.
The syndrome is so contagious that
throughout all the governments that we have had none has managed to drive in
feasible programs enabling an average Malawian family to get food to its table
everyday all year round.
Should, truth be told, we have
trusted selfish gluttons who seemingly do not care a single bit about the
welfare of people who get them into authority.
Malawians have turned into a pitiful
nation flanked by covetous and power hungry individuals masquerading as
political leaders.
They that without any iota of shame
steal and pickpocket from the miserable nationals who literally have to part
away with their hard earned dimes each time, in payment of tax on almost every
item they lay their hands on in a grocery store.
It is in the light of the perpetual
broad daylight thievery that seems to be a well cherished hobby by our leaders
that I choose to differ with a bandwagon of people who think that insufficient
financial resources are a major contributing factor to our prolonged food
crisis.
It is high time we got rid of the
political decadence currently going on and set the lives of our people top on
our priorities.
Otherwise, looking back at the 50
years plus of Malawi’s political autonomy and being an agriculture dependent
country that it is, all I see is a multitude of citizens who have literally
spent five decades toiling in vain.
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