Prejudice and ignorance is not the same thing, but prejudice can sometimes lead to the later. In thinking that we are better than other people we sometimes deprive ourselves of new and sometimes invaluable knowledge. I once attended a journalism school where I learned that one of the qualities of a good journalist is curiosity; and one of the worst habits any journalist can have is to draw conclusions based on assumption.

This is exactly what led to the Associated Press’ news story: “Poverty-stricken Malawi feasts on mice“. The content of the story is accurate, no doubt about that. However, the headline is nothing but a distortion based on prejudice.

Had the writer took their time to do simplest of researches, speaking to the mice sellers, for instance, they could have established that the people who buy the mice are the people with some sort of income. In other words, people who are not starving. People that can afford to buy food; they buy mice as a luxury, for the love of it. That is why mice is sold on the roadsides. The idea is to sale the product to the motorists; poor people in Malawi don’t drive. This is a simple logic.

Similarly, mice is consumed in the villages but not as a staple food. In fact, the period when people hunt mice is just after harvest because during this time the mice is everywhere in the corn and groundnuts fields looking to steal farmer’s produce. As it is harvesting time, it means that the people would have enough food to feed themselves. After all, Malawi has had food surplus in the last three harvesting seasons. Eating mice is more of a tradition in Malawi. People with or without food do it.

I applaud the initiative to write stories on small countries as Malawi but I would urge the people involved to do more research and try to understand the topics before jumping into assumption based conclusions. In this case, I am sure the writer already had in mind about the kind of story they wanted to tell. That is why the available facts were ignored.

About a fortnight ago I posted a blog article arguing that immunities offered to politicians, presidents in particular, undermines good governance in Africa. I stated two main reasons: the first one was that it encourages corruption at the top, as officials know they cannot be persecuted. The second reason is that it promotes political tension, as presidents sought to cling on to power in order to maintain the immunity. If this fails, the presidents imposes leaders on the people.

I gave the examples of Bakili Muluzi in Malawi, Fredrick Chiluba in Zambia and Daniel arap Moi in Kenya. Both Muluzi and Chiluba failed to run for unconstitutional third terms in their respective countries and later on forced their preferred candidates on the people; Bingu wa Mutharika and the late Levy Mwanawasa (RIP).

These are historical lessons that must be heeded in order to improve the way things are set and to avoid repeating the same mistakes again. Unfortunately this is not the case, at least in my loved, Malawi.

According to the Daily Times report, the country’s revenue body, Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) has announced that with effect from 3rd July 2009, incumbent president, his deputy, all the retired presidents and their deputies will be tax exempted on things that are for ‘personal use’.

I detest this provision. Knowing the greed and self-centeredness of African leaders, this provision will only bring controversies and corruption. What constitutes to ‘personal use’? would Muluzi’s 100 vehicles he imported in 2004 fall in this category?

Sure, the vehicles were used by Muluzi’s Party, United Democratic Front (UDF), but does the provision stop someone from sharing their ‘personal’ stuff? In Africa we leave communal life, more or less. We share ‘personal’ things like cooking utensils, bicycles, etc… Will these imported things, which are meant for ‘personal use’ not be available for share? What if ex-president buys a car, a shirt, or a boxer-short, uses it for a year and then feels that they have had enough of it; will they be allowed to give it to their uncles, unties, nieces, nephews or their village chief?

Who will be policing the maneuvers of the ‘personal use’ items? Maybe that will be the only positive thing about the whole thing, as that would get someone employed?

In all fairness to all those who will benefit from this provision, I think this is just another reason why ex-presidents will be spending more time in courts trying to clarify how they interpreted the ‘personal use’ of their property. It is a shame that suspects spend years in Malawi’s jails without trial when our policy makers are happy to introduce more and more legislation that will surely get the courts congested even more.

After the G8 summit that was dominated by Silvio Berlusconi’s scandals than demonstrations, the world’s most popular leader, Barak Obama headed to Ghana for a snap visit. The speculation was that the choice of Ghana was due to its ‘good democratic record’, even though Botswana can match that. Nonetheless, Ghana is more visible on the world map and has larger presence on the global scale.

Given the reasoning behind Obama’s choice of Ghana, one would easily predict that the theme of the visit would rally around democracy, good governance, development, aid, civil war etc… all the four topics sprung up, civil war did not, Mr Obama preferred to use the softer word: conflict.

However, I believe good governance is the key if any of the issues that Obama highlighted are to be achieved. The primary prerequisites of democracy are separation of powers, executive, legislature and judiciary. For checks and balance, we may include the media, which is free of corporate interest, free of state interest and manipulation, the media that is there solely to serve the interest of the nation. Such media holds the three branches accountable while also acting as a connective tissue between the electorate and the elected.

These are basic prerequisites of every functioning democracy. However, the mere existence of these structures do not guarantee good governance. Good governance can only work where public office holders are not immune to scrutiny and persecution. This is where Mr. Obama’s words and plea for good governance will not deliver. Mr. Obama has acted like a farmer who sow his fertile seeds on hard ground, if the seeds germinate they won’t bear any fruits because the roots will be two shallow to support it.

Just as many nations around the globe, rich and poor, great and small, a huge majority of African states have rule of law that fosters bad governance and not otherwise. According to ARTICLE 19′s press release of 13th July 2009, its survey on decriminalisation of defamation laws has shown that of the 168 countries it surveyed, 158 have criminal defamation laws and 113 countries have laws offering special protection to the most powerful and privileged figures in public life.

“These laws shield public figures from criticism, public scrutiny and investigation by virtue of the power they hold, thereby eating at the very heart of global efforts to promote good governance and combat corruption.”

Not only does such laws encourage corruption they also offer incentive to incumbent presidents to cling on to power or try to hand pick a successor that will not persecute them. The best example is Bakili Muluzi of Malawi, who unsuccessfully tried to change the Constitution to stay in power and later hand picked a successor when he had ran out of options. Fredrick Chiluba of Zambia, had the same case. Today Muluzi is under investigation by Malawi’s anti-graft body and Chiluba is in the dock answering corruption charges. Daniel arap Moi of Kenya and most recently Olusegun Obasanjo in Nigeria all hand picked successors who failed in the subsequent elections.

Until these constitutional issues are dealt with, once and for all, good governance in Africa and, indeed elsewhere, will remain but a fretting illusion to be pursued but never attained.