THE CHRONICLE

Of Nigerians and other Foreigners

Dear Editor,
 

Each time I heard about the ordeals that fellow Malawians
experience
with Indians in our country, I always brushed them aside as
mere 
isolated incidences until one Thursday when I faced them
face-to-face.
Since that day I told myself I will never in my life again
 respect them 
anymore, especially Nigerians whatever their constitutional
 rights to 
stay in Malawi are.
 Imagine this fellow Malawians. We went to carry out repairs
 on his 
satellite system as a service at the home of one Nigerian
 (name 
withheld). After a perfect job, he said, “come to my shop to
 collect 
your payment”. Upon reaching his shop, the story of come
 tomorrow 
started. The next day it was again ‘tomorrow.’
 When confronted on the third day, I got the shock of my life
 with my 
Nigerian client. I was dressed down before he grabbed me by
 my throat 
and threw me down. “Can’t you be afraid of this shop and show
 respect?” 
He shouted at me.
 I stood up. Fear gripped me. I just looked at him then
 looked at 
myself again. I pitied myself. Yes, he does have a wealthy
 shop. But I 
immediately compared it to the immense value of our land
 where he 
obtains his fortunes from. Much as he expected me to respect
his shop,
I felt he too had a duty to respect our land. And to respect
 our land 
means to respect us, the indigenous owners.
 Fellow Malawians, assist me to plead with government to ask
 these 
people to respect us. And in order to limit their numbers,
 may 
government only accept those foreigners that can invest in 
manufacturing and do challenging scientific and technological
 tasks. Do 
we not have our own carpet and second hand TV vendors?
 Short of that, I shall always miss Kamuzu who never gave them
 a chance. 
Yes, we admit we are poor, but we should not be looked down
 on in our 
own land. It is unacceptable.
 
Oswell Bosco Seyara
A Lilongwe Resident

 Something needs to be done about the way we let merchants treat us in our own land. Though, these nigerians and Arabs provide (cheap!) goods, services and jobs to our people, it does not give them a right to abuse us. There definately needs to be reform on the part of law enforcement.

I found it interesting when the writer of this story mentioned how he missed Kamuzu. Looking back to Banda's seating, you'll recognise how this bwana mentality is deeply rooted in his regime, which allowed foriegners to do whatever they pleas with little regard for the Malawian people. Banda's intentions, of course, were to stream foriegn money into the economy. Unfortunately, the foreigners were the only ones who benefitted fromt this in the long run. Not only is revenue being sent out of Malawi's economy to palces such as india, nigeria, lebanon and pakistan, but it  has had an effect on the way they view, us, the rightful land owners. This "your-land-our-money" slogan  is what should make us recognise where things have come to. A drive past the city center in Lilongwe is enough to show how poor their customer service is. To this day, the Nigerian and Lebanese thugs are soo notorious, they consider themselves above the law-they own guns and use them recklessly.