Final trumpet call for Malawi’s Mutharika

Shortly after coming to power, Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika fled the presidential palace, claiming there were demons in the 300-room architectural marvel which sits on 1,332 acres and cost the tobacco-dependent country $100 million.

“Sometimes the president feels rodents crawling all over his body but when the lights are turned on, he sees nothing,” an aide told journalists in 2005.

The president resorted to commuting daily from Mtunthama, about 100km outside the capital Lilongwe.

This was just one of the many eccentric acts of the man who ruled the Southern African country of 13 million since 2004.

Described by critics as crass and paranoid, Mr Mutharika’s bizarre decisions drove his country to its knees.

He told the UK, Malawi’s main donor which gave up to $153 million (£93m) every year, to “go to hell” after a leaked cable last year attributed to the British High Commissioner referred to him as an autocrat.

Malawi’s isolation and economic plight worsened in July 2011 when the US shelved a $350 million overhaul of the dilapidated power grid after police killed 20 people in a crackdown on anti-government protests.

Keen to have his brother, Foreign minister Peter Mutharika succeed him in the June 2014 elections, he expelled Vice President Joyce Banda from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party but she remained Vice President of the republic because of a constitutional provision.

He compared her to Lucifer.

“When God noted that Lucifer was being big-headed, he did not hesitate to evict him from the heavenly government. I am not the first to fire someone, it started in heaven. So before you start faulting me for being intolerant because I have sacked Joyce Banda, fault God for sacking Lucifer from heaven.”

In 2007, he married Calista Chimombo, a cabinet minister 27 years his junior. The ceremony involved an imported limousine, new roads and a 28-tier cake which cost around R22 million (Sh233 million).

At the same time, Mutharika was building a grand mausoleum to house the body and possessions of his first wife, Ethel. He denied the memorial, in the style of the Taj Mahal, was built with state funds.

Lands minister Yunus Mussa in February sacrificed goats to try and save Mutharika’s life after Nigerian prophet TB Joshua’s prophecy that one of Africa’s old presidents might die.

Mussa, a Muslim, went to a primary school in Lilongwe to make the offering.

This is not the first time the president’s death was a matter of speculation. Last year, social media was abuzz with rumours the 78-year-old had died after he failed to return from a Commonwealth Heads of State and Government meeting in Australia.

When he resurfaced three weeks later, he said he was disappointed by the speculation and claimed he was in the best of health.

“I am not dead. Maybe my coffin is on the way; maybe I have forgotten it at the airport.” Explaining his disappearing act he said: “I had gone for a holiday in Macau, China. I deserved it after working hard for two years without a break and the laws of Malawi do not oblige me tell Malawians about my whereabouts.”

He insisted devaluation was not the answer to Malawi’s economic problems.

“Is the IMF ready to face villagers and explain to them when prices go up? If you know how we can deal with the fuel problems you can tell me otherwise when I tell you how I am dealing with these problems you do not want to believe me.”

He accused the Malawi media, NGOs and opposition politicians of failing to recognise and catalogue his achievements.

“I do not owe you anything. Write positive stories about government. That is the kind of journalists we want in Malawi,” he said.

As minister for the Civil Service, Mutharika last December sent all civil servants on a 14-day Christmas holiday, ostensibly to cut on expenditure.

“It has pleased President Bingu wa Mutharika to grant civil servants leave from 23rd December, 2011 to 6th January, 2012 to allow them time with their families.”

These bizarre acts might paint a portrait of a primitive man steeped in superstition; But Mr Mutharika was a highly learned man with a string of degrees, including a PhD in economics, from universities in Zambia, India and the US.

Additional reporting by Julius Sigei.