PART 5: SEASON FINALE, PRESIDENT BINGU WA MUTHARIKA IS DEAD, DEEP STATE IS OVERPOWERED, VP JOYCE BANDA LAUGHS LAST
SHE IS SWORN IN - BEATING THE MIDNIGHT SIX
The six ministers addressed Malawians at midnight on 6 April 2012, saying that Joyce Banda was ineligible to become president of Malawi. (When Joyce Banda became president, she arrested these six & charged them with treason for their mischief)
On April 7, the day of the proposed court action, the Attorney General called the Minister of Justice to say he was NOT going to file court papers and would resign in protest if the government forced him to proceed to court to try stop Joyce Banda becoming president.
The Attorney General then texted Peter Mutharika, the president’s brother, advising him to abandon the course he had taken and to further remind him that Malawi needed to be governed by constitutional order.
In his final act of defiance, Attorney General called all concerned staff at the Ministry of Justice who were working on the case that the matter should not be filed in court. He told them not to go to the office and to switch off their phones.
But Peter Mutharika was not ready to give up so they resolved to retain a private practice lawyer to take up the matter since the Attorney General had absconded. But the lawyer advised that chances of success with this court action were very, very slim.
And the ground began to shift.
After pressure from South African President Jacob Zuma and others, an announcement of the death of the president was made on 7 April. At this point some ministers and other politicians began repositioning themselves and moved to support Joyce Banda
On the day that the announcement of death was made, the Malawi army deployed the Military Police at Joyce Banda’s house to secure her and other strategic places such as Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (Radio and Television).
That afternoon a cabinet meeting was held and was presided over by vice president Joyce Banda. All members attended meeting one who was out of the country, one who was reported to be unwell, and Peter Mutharika in view of the announced death of the president, his elder brother.
At this meeting all members of the cabinet were given a chance to speak. They each pledged their support to Joyce Banda & renounced their earlier decision to contest her ascendancy to the presidency. They then agreed that she should be sworn in as president on that very day.
All this while, the first lady was in South Africa with the body of her husband which was not to return to Malawi for several days. But before she left Malawi for South Africa, she had locked the her and the president’s private quarters at State House and taken the keys.
But relatives of the president brought a carpenter to break the locks and force the doors open and they removed some of her and her husband’s personal belongings. Most of these items were packed in suitcases and boxes as they were being removed.
At an inquiry into this matter, one officer, a relative of the dead president, said after the announcement of death, they panicked and started moving the President’s and the First Lady’s personal belongings and property from the State House.
On hearing that her bedroom has been broken into, the First Lady called someone at State House and asked them to please look out and secure a wrist watch, which she said a very expensive watch that the President had bought her as a wedding gift.
An auditor at State House told the Commission that he tried to reason with the late President’s relatives not to remove the items he did not succeed. At that point he started taking record of some of the items that were leaving the State House, but not all
The auditor said that there was a situation where the president’s relatives wanted to remove some television screens from State House thinking that they were the late President’s personal property but he stopped them and advised them that those screens were govt property.
Of particular interest was the testominy of one Ronneck Nkaliyalinga, who worked in the private wing of the State House:
He said inside the president’s residence was a room that they never knew of before. When the room was forced open, three people went in and came out with bags and and bags. He suspected that there must have been money in that room.
Where the money went; nobody knows.
Have a great EMashujaa Day!
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