Malawi has yesterday celebrated what is called Kamuzu Day. Essentially, 14th May is recorded to be the day when Hastings Kamuzu Banda, first President of Malawi was born. The national holiday is not for the mere fact of his birthday. Rather, it is a special tribute accorded to him for leading a fight that liberated Malawi from colonial rule and achieved self-rule.
Present at the event was the incumbent president, His Excellency Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, who was accompanied by the incumbent Vice President Dr. Saulos Klaus Chilima, former President Dr Joyce Banda and former Vice President Khumbo Kachali among prominent citizens reputed through public offices.
According President Chakwera’s remarks delivered at the event, Kamuzu’s day is worth celebrating because Malawi as an independent nation did not occur out of the goodness of the colonial government’s heart. In his remarks, Chakwera stated that Kamuzu led a group of courageous Malawians who rejected foreign oppression in our own land and fought a deadly war to gain freedom.
“Kamuzu had the courage to leave a comfortable life abroad to come stand with Malawians in their struggle, and we must celebrate and emulate that by sacrificing our own comforts to make Malawi better, not just complaining about it to make Malawians bitter,” the president highlighted.
One thing that Kamuzu Day commemoration event managed to subtly highlight yesterday beyond and aside its main objective was the fact that the political organization behind which the late Hastings Kamuzu Banda founded and ruled Malawi is not showing any signs of its own death.
The Malawi Congress Party (MCP) which has survived strongly since its formation and recently pulled itself from the opposition trenches during the previous presidential election has, in its present reign, enjoyed and endured unrelenting opposition (at least on the social media), yet maintaining its muscle of strength on the ground if masses that are pulled by events associated with the party is anything to go by.
Perhaps it goes to explain competence and industry of the organizing leaders who, from time to time, pull such masses. One such prominent leaders who marshal the youths and always come up with a number to show is the current Minister of Local Government, Richard Chimwendo Banda, who is the party’s Member of Parliament representing people of Dowa East Constituency.
During yesterday’s event which was set to commemorate the day that Kamuzu Banda, the crowned founding father of Malawi nation, was born, Chimwendo was never to fail in his game. He assembled youths in daunting multitudes who obediently paraded the city of Lilongwe sending a different message to those who have satisfied themselves that the opposition is equally strong.
