Writing in 2000, Francis Nyamnjoh, professor of anthropology at University of Cape Town made the following observation on African media: “An examination of most legal frameworks in Africa, even after the liberalisation of media in the 1990s, reveals a craving to control that leaves little doubt of lawmakers perceiving journalists as potential troublemakers...

Five days after Peter Mutharika’s return from his prolonged stay in the United States of America where he attended United Nations General Assembly in New York, the Malawi President, held a much anticipated press conference to brief Malawians on duties he carried out during his time in the USA. At least this was the official agenda of the press briefing,...

The President of Malawi, Peter Mutharika (76), finally returned home after a month-long absence. His still unexplained absence led to speculation that he had either gone awol or was hiding debilitating illness. The failure by his government to explain his whereabouts only served to fuel the speculation. Mutharika landed in New York on September 16 for...

This September marks three years since the high-level corruption scandal in which $31 million was stolen from government coffers began to be uncovered. Since then, over 70 individuals – including high-level civil servants, private contractors and politicians – have been charged in connection with what has locally been dubbed the Cashgate scandal. Eleven...

Fredric Jameson, a contemporary American Marxist and literary critic opened his influence work on The Political Unconscious (1981) with that slogan: “always historicise.” Jameson’s view is that all works of literature are received by the reader with already read status – even new text, he argues, is read with a hangover of unconscious prejudice and...

Malawi leaders are very good at finding quick fixes to complicated problem, akin to bandaging boils instead of bursting and treating them. Wishing problems away instead of dealing with them. Malawi is always in a state of crisis because its leaders always opt for quick but temporary fixes to complicated problems that seem popular at the time; short-term...