Comment of the Week

Blind loyalty is costly

The presence of UDF supporters at former President Bakili Muluzi’s residence at BCA Hill yesterday as ACB officers were searching the residence is yet another endeavour of costly blind loyalty from which Malawians must desist.
The presence of ACB and police officers at Muluzi’s houses was nothing out of the ordinary. After all, this is not the first time, and it is certainly not the last time that law enforcers storm somebody’s house for a search—as long as they have a warrant.
Errands like these are done within the law, and it is a crime for someone to obstruct a law enforcer on duty, as was the case at BCA yesterday, if intimidatory comments by some of Muluzi’s sympathisers are to be highlighted.
Need we remind the people who were intimidating police officers and journalists yesterday that their actions were unwarranted, because the matter at hand is between Muluzi, the owner of the house and the law enforcers? The best onlookers, like the UDF sympathisers would do, would be to patiently wait as the officers carry out their duties inside the compound.
Threats by some UDF leaders that if Muluzi were arrested, more support for the UDF chair would have been called for from elsewhere, are unfortunate. They were certainly made out of ignorance, which might consequently do the party more harm than good.
This needed not be the case, because only Muluzi, and him alone, has answers to why the law enforcers were at his residence.
What we witnessed yesterday is blind loyalty which we condemn with caution—that it does not pay trying to be a hero where there is no need for a hero. In our politics, examples are many of people whose blind loyalty has landed them in trouble, where only them are now suffering.
Shaban Kadango and other UDF Young Democrats currently serving prison sentences for crimes they committed in the name of the party and the Lilongwe State House DPP(?) man who is nursing a wound he sustained at demonstrations against President Bingu wa Mutharika’s impeachment motion early this week are probably best examples of rewards of blind loyalty.

-Nation Editorial