Nigerian–South African based scholar Dr. Tochukwu Osuagwu has sharply criticized the move to have former Malawian president Arthur Peter Mutharika continue being involved in frontline politics without consideration of his old age and failing health.
Dr. Osuagwu, a theologian scholar based at the University of Pretoria, posted in a WhatsApp group for fellow scholars and compared Mutharika’s current situation to that of Cameroon’s ageing leader.
“Cameroon’s 90-something years old president just returned from a medical trip from France. Only to say that he is hitting the campaign trail again. Colonial powers aid and abet this nonsense,” he wrote.
The theologian lamented what he sees as a broader problem in African politics, accusing both leaders and citizens of failing to act in the continent’s best interests.
“Africans, we are not reasoning well. We are squandering our God-given resources and hating our own homelands,” he said.
Turning directly to the Malawian context, Dr. Osuagwu questioned why Mutharika, a former head of state now in his eighties, is still being put forward as a candidate.
“Why can’t Peter go home and rest? He’s clearly at the edge, yet they keep using him. No dignity. No integrity. Just emptiness paraded as leadership.”
He went on to argue that the situation is sustained by public complicity, saying: “And worst of all, people will still vote for him. Too many brainwashed citizens.”
Dr. Osuagwu’s message concluded with a sombre reflection on human flaws: “Sometimes, it feels like God was asleep while making human beings, too many flaws, too little sense.”
Mutharika, who led Malawi from 2014 to 2020, has already presented his nomination papers to the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) signaling his willingness to contest again under the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) banner.
His supporters maintain that he is fit to lead, while critics question whether his age and health allow for the demands of the presidency.
Dr. Tochukwu Osuagwu’s concerns are not just rhetoric; he is pointing at a deeper problem. He is diagnosing a political tragedy that has become painfully visible in Malawi over the past months: a party pushing elderly, infirm former president into the spotlight while offering the public a series of mixed signals about his health and capacity to lead.
In politics, inconsistency about a leader’s capacity is corrosive of trust. When leaders hide facts, citizens assume the worst. That vacuum is fertile ground for speculation, for rival narratives and, as critics warn, for manufactured claims designed to preserve the party’s short-term electoral hopes at long-term cost to credibility.
Two principles collide here. On one hand, the medical privacy of any individual, including a former president, deserves respect. On the other, when someone stands as a candidate for the nation’s highest office, voters have a legitimate right to know whether the person can shoulder the duties that come with the job such as sustained travel, long campaigning, decision-making under pressure and the capacity to serve for a full term.
Where many in Malawi and beyond have lost patience is not with personal privacy but with secrecy and spin.
Controlled snapshots, ambiguous statements and staged events only deepen the suspicion that a party is using images to mask incapacity. In that case, calls for transparency, independent medical clearance and open disclosure grow louder and do not appear unreasonable.
There are pragmatic political reasons some parties run elderly, symbolic figures.
These reasons include figurehead utility whereby an older leader can act as a unifying symbol while a powerful inner circle runs day-to-day operations; control and continuity with gatekeepers who hold the real levers of power preferring a controllable figurehead to a vigorous, independent leader; and electoral calculation from name recognition and past incumbency that can still deliver votes, especially where party loyalties are entrenched.
But these tactical calculations come with costs. If the figurehead is visibly incapacitated and the party refuses to acknowledge this, voters may feel deceived. Worse, the arrangement risks institutional fragility with questions coming up as to who truly holds the reins? If the answer is a cabal, the country faces a governance model where accountability is weakened.
Dr. Tochukwu Osuagwu’s message, blunt and uncompromising, captures international frustration at a pattern seen across several African countries. Leaders past their physical prime being pressed to remain as front-line figures.
His words resonate because they tapped into a moral and civic question. In modern democracies, should the elderly be used as instruments to return political networks to power?
Whether framed as moral admonition or political critique, those lines underline that optics matter no less than policy. When citizens perceive deception, legitimacy evaporates.
Again, Dr. Osuagwu’s sharp rebuke is an external echo of what many Malawians already feel. It is not elder statesmanship to put a visibly frail individual forward without frankness. The real failing is political concealment. A democratic society that tolerates opaque manoeuvres to get a candidate elected risks not merely an awkward presidency, it risks normalizing opacity and replacing accountable leadership with shadow rule.
If the DPP believes Mutharika can serve Malawi’s next five years, the party should prove it, openly, transparently, and with independent verification. If it cannot, the party owes voters the decency of an honest choice. Either way, Malawians must be given the facts, not carefully composed photographs.
