Kamuzu Barracks were the last side to secure their final slot in this year’s FISD Challenge Cup following their 4-1 thrashing of Hangover United at Mpira Stadium in Blantyre.
The soldiers will meet Blue Eagles which also eliminated Silver Strikers with four goals but to zero at Civo Stadium on Saturday.
With all hopes and expectations from spectators from the Southern Region, home for Hangover, especially after being the only representative from the region, the team failed to live to its billing from the first whistle in the first half.
Spectators thronged to the Stadium expecting to see the only premier league side to reach this stage upset the Lilongwe soldiers as they did with Be Forward Wanderers in the quarterfinals, but it never worked.
Looking so determined to reach the final stage, KB scored 10 minutes into play courtesy of Francisco Kamdzeka before Nation Harazi doubled the lead through a header seven minutes later.
At 31st minute, Harazi doubled his score while Harvey Mkacha netted the last one.
As the soldiers were celebrating their fourth goal, the rookies quickly restarted play with Brighton Gomani’s long range shot ending up in the visitors’ net.
Referee Misheck Juba awarded the host a goal which was their consolation.
Second half they tried to push for another goal while outclassing KB, but it seems the early goals worked to the advantage of the soldiers.
EagIt now remains in the hands of the all-Central Region giants to prove their superiority and lay their hands on the K20 million prize money, while the other takes K7 million as runners-up.
The Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Honourable Bright Msaka SC has reached out to hundreds of people in Machinga Likwenu Constituency, whose lives have been turned upside down by a devastating windstorm that battered the area on Tuesday afternoon.
Msaka addressing victims
Honourable Msaka, who is the legislator for the area, said on Sunday when he toured the constituency immediately after arriving from an international engagement that he was shocked by the extend of the damage caused by the strong wind.
The ferocious wind swept through some parts of the constituency, razing down houses and blowing off roof tops of school blocks, inflicting various degrees of injuries and leaving everything in its path lying in ruins.
The legislator said although he has provided relief maize to families affected by the disaster, government, through the Office of the Vice President Rt Honourable Overton Chimlirenji, was assessing the situation in order to step in with the necessary support.
Honourable Msaka assured the families that the Government of State President, Prof Arthur Peter Mutharika, will do everything possible to ensure that the victims of the windstorm are back on their feet in the quickest time possible.
He burst onto the scene with a CV no other candidate at the time could match, yes, a Law Professor with over 40 years residency in America. Too many Malawians, who for long had thought University degrees mean higher productivity in an individual, saw him as the dream Malawi had been hoping for. A well-educated leader, who will use his high levels of intelligence to rescue Malawi from the many problems it had. Sceptics kept their mouths shut; even when they spoke, not many would listen to them. However they had a point. They tried to remind Malawians that the so-called Professor’s track record as a Minister of Education in the [then his late brother’s] government, was nothing but a disaster. Fast forward 4 years into his term as the President of the Republic of Malawi, Peter Mutharika has been nothing but a real disappointment. To say he is probably the worst of all the leaders Malawi has had might seem cruel, but in a culture where we give respect to the elders , we are better off settling at saying his term hasn’t been the best.
As Malawi slowly approaches the general elections next year, I find myself sitting down feeling sorry for Mutharika. Politics is dynamic and anything can happen. Former British Prime Minister David Cameron said “a week is a long time in politics” so although I may pity the Malawi Leader today, that doesn’t rule him out from achieving an unexpected win in the general elections. Mutharika’s recent rhetoric has been nothing short of a man who is living in denial. Many analysts and critics have written about it. His claims that Malawi is heading in the right direction comes short of an insult to the many Malawians who have almost conceded that at this time the country is a failed state. Here is a President who is denying that corruption is rampant in his government, that his government has been at the forefront of nepotism, that the electricity problems are still ongoing. Two things are happening to the president. Either he’s advocating a deliberate denial of his shambolic performance as leader over the past 4 years, or alternatively the people closest to him are busy feeding him lies, making him think that the country is very much appreciative of his tenure in office.
In Mutharika I see a leader who is leading a party that is under panic. DPP is facing the biggest challenge from the resurgent Malawi Congress Party and the rising popularity of its leader Dr Lazarus Chakwera. The few months that are remaining are not enough for the DPP to fulfil the many promises it pledged in its manifesto back in 2014. Whether the party was overly ambitious and set the bar too high, any evaluation of its performance would be dependent on whether it has achieved what it promised Malawians. A closer look at their manifesto showcases many broken promises. While the party has doggedly attempted to build as many stadiums as it can or rather, laid foundation stones for many stadiums, their 2014 Manifesto serves as a reminder as to how much they have broken the promises they made to Malawians.
Mutharika and his party DPP committed to sustain fertilizer subsidy for the poor in Malawi. The party commit to abolish the coupon system and make subsidized fertilizer available for every maize subsistence farmer that needs it. The party promised to pursue Zero Tolerance on Corruption, Bribery, Fraud and Theft of government resources. Corruption by high profile government offices has never been tackled and efforts to dig deeper into the famous “Cashgate Scandal” has failed to investigate the corruption that started during Bingu Wa Mutharikas era. DPP promised to introduce Health Insurance for all public servants; to end critical shortage of staff, medicine and drugs; repair and maintain medical equipment. The party has failed to provide enough medicines in hospitals, nor introduce the promised Health Insurance for public servants. There were promises around Housing and access to information which have not been fulfilled. Whether all of this will be done in the remaining few months is yet to be seen.Mutharika’s plight is aggravated by the fact that the old man is getting on abit . He is 77 years old and will be 78 at the next general. While trying my best not to be ageist, Mutharika may be better off thinking about retirement. It makes me wonder why the President has not been grooming the youthful Vice President Saulos Chilima to take over from him and represent the party next year. Well, the situation is not all rosy for our President and his DPP camp.
September 15 passed silently without a national remembrance of Malawi’s hero, Professor David Rubadiri, who died on the same day last year.
However, in this silence reigned a loud whisper at Chancellor College in Zomba as scholars hatched an idea to celebrate his heroics through publication of the Journal of Humanities as a special issue.
This idea is now a reality.
The college, through its English Department, has released the journal Celebrating Professor David Rubadiri which features eight papers and poems written by scholars from both within and outside Malawi.
The journal’s editor Emmanuel Ngwira says the publication follows a call for papers the department made earlier to honour the fallen hero.
“On September 15 2018, the academic community woke up to the shocking news of the passing of Professor David Rubadiri, a day after celebrating his 61st anniversary in marriage.
“Prof Rubadiri was a celebrated poet, playwright, novelist, critic, diplomat and one-time Vice Chancellor of the University of Malawi. He also taught at universities of Makerere in Uganda, Nairobi in Kenya, and Botswana. His biography and work anticipate the figure and the preoccupations of a transnational and trans-cultural artist, and visionary leader,” says Ngwira.
But how has the academy remembered this celebrated artist in the journal?
Fragments of Rubadiri
Associate professor of Literature at Makerere University, Susan Kiguli, explores the intersections of Rubadiri’s roles as a student, poet and teacher.
In the article Fragments of Rubadiri: Student, Teacher and Poet, Kiguli says she seeks to address silences and gaps the apparent absence of Rubadiri’s full auto/biographical work creates.
The University of Leeds trained academic says she relied on the archive to trace three stages in Rubadiri’s life: his days as a student at Makerere, his time as a teacher at the same university and his career as a poet.
“I observe that his remarkable abilities and personality as attested to by his teachers during his student days allowed him to transition into a celebrated teacher and an intuitive poet later in his life.
“I also observe that as a student, teacher and poet, his strengths were anchored in his ability to understand the importance of being human and the shifting boundaries of human experience.
“Further, I touch on notions of home and exile in Rubadiri’s life and poetry, particularly in the context of Makerere University and Uganda, his adopted home,” writes Kiguli.
Trauma, drama in Rubadiri’s poetry
Rubadiri was “one of Africa’s most widely anthologised poets,” with some of his poetry appearing in respectable anthologies such as Poems from East Africa, co-edited with David Cook, and Growing up with Poetry that he curated.
Rubadiri is not only widely anthologised, but he is also one of the most read African poets because his poetry “has been prescribed reading in many African education systems than his single novel No Bride Price.
No wonder, in his entry Melancholy and Trauma in David Rubadiri’s Poetry, Makerere University lecturer of literature Edgar Nabutanyi delves into the literary life of Rubadiri and lays bare his traumatic experiences of postcolonial Africa.
Nabutanyi, a holder of a doctorate degree in English, argues that it is inevitable for Rubadiri’s poetry to embody undertones of trauma because “of the colonial epistemic violence committed against Africans during and after colonialism”.
“This is perhaps why his works interrogate the dual collective traumatic memory of Africa’s colonial and post-independence disillusionment. It is unsurprising that the poetic works of Rubadiri generally, and those explored in this article simultaneously betray nostalgic melancholy of the continent’s squandered opportunities and promise at independence,” he says.
University of Malawi English lecturer Syned Mthatiwa agrees with Nabutanyi that Rubadiri’s popularity rests in poetry. But the former is quick to point out that “his poetic harvest is rather minimal—his only collection, An African Thunderstorm and Other Poems, boasts only twenty-three poems”.
“What the poems lack in numbers, they more than compensate for in the energy and beauty that they radiate, beauty that has seen most of them translated and anthologised around the world over the years.
“It is also this energy, the beauty of composition, and their tackling of relevant themes, which have made his poems the staple of many poetry classes in Africa and beyond,” says Mthatiwa.
Mthatiwa, therefore, argues that the success of Rubadiri’s poems is based on how the poet uses drama, which is “in turn reliant on his economic use of language, his descriptive skills, and his use of vivid and evocative images”.
Kenya Citizen TV anchor Victoria Rubadiri , granddaughter of the late professor
“These aspects do not only render the poetry enduring and memorable, but they also make the poems and the action in them spring to life, cementing the legacy of the poet as one of the accomplished poets of his generation in Africa,” he writes.
Lessons learnt
The journal then takes a soft touch to issues as Mzati Nkolokosa and Asante Lucy Mtenje wrap up with the lessons and the legacy that Rubadiri left behind through his poetry and his lived life which is described as “a classroom for all of us even after his death”.
“Through various recollections of my interations with the late professor, I reflect on Rubadiri’s positive influence on my academic and literary journeys,” says Mtenje
She adds: “The article reads the impact that Rubadri’s life had on my life through the evocation of powerful quotations from other writers, which aptly sum up Rubadiri’s legacy as a writer, freedom fighter, humanitarian and mentor who touched many people’s lives in profound ways.”
In her entry Rubadiri, Ugandan poet Moureen Aol brings in a message of hope for such a loss in Rubadiri, envisioning his rebirth through the work of numerous poets that he influenced, including herself.
She writes: “… His heart of gold is preserved
where decay has no power.
His footprints are still visible to us
We, who had no encounter, no second glance at him
will wear his shoes
The Rubadiri mask sits gently on every poet’s face
A court in Lilongwe has sentenced a famous Malawian prophet, Chimwemwe Seer Sabao, to a 10 years jail term for forgery and falsifying documents.
Sabao , a shepherd prophet for worshippers at Angelic Gathering For Christ Church has since started his sentence at Maula Prison .Another person, Nomsa Plaigne who was Sabo’s accomplice, has been sentenced to four years in jail for uttering false documents.
A second grade magistrate court convicted Sabao a week ago after months of trial.He was charged with forgery and falsifying documents after being suspected of cashing out seven cheques from the bank account of Glalle Enterprises and General Dealers Stationers which belongs to his mother-in-law.
It is alleged that Sabawo a man of God connived to defraud Glalle Company by originating a cheque hired some young men to cash the case.
When the employed men sensed danger of arrest, they immediately reported Sabawo accomplices to Police who immediately pounced on him while he was busy administering Sunday services.
The money that was stolen amounts to K3, 350, 000. However, Sabao and his accomplice denied the charges.
Sabao was in the media a few months ago for assaulting his wife and dumping her in the family toilet.
But later her wife died in a very controversial manner in which it is alleged that she was poisoned through a witch doctor based in Mitundu in Lilongwe.
