At the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) so-called “Mega Rally” at Katoto Ground, Mzuzu, former President Arthur Peter Mutharika, frail, forgetful, and visibly out of touch with reality on the ground, made a claim that deserves to be called out for what it is: a deliberate distortion of history.
Standing before a crowd in the North, the region that suffered most under the quota system, Mutharika shamelessly declared that he, and not the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), abolished the quota system on 20 February 2020.
Before anything else, let us put to him this simple question: Was there ever a student intake into universities or secondary schools in February 2020 to test this supposed “abolition”? No.
The academic calendar did not align with that date, and therefore no selection took place to prove his claim. It was a press statement, nothing more. A cosmetic policy direction and political stunt issued in the dying days of his presidency, just months before Malawians voted him out.
The truth is far uglier and more enduring. The quota system is the very evil policy that the DPP, under APM’s brother late Bingu wa Mutharika introduced, passionately sustained, and defended for over a decade. And Peter Mutharika was not just a passive bystander, he was the policy’s midwife, its guardian, and its unrepentant defender.
History records that Peter Mutharika was Minister of Education when the quota system was introduced. He had every opportunity to steer the country toward fairness and meritocracy. Instead, he chose division. He chose regionalism. He chose discrimination.
For six long years as President, he nurtured the quota system. For more than a decade since his brother came into power, he watered it, defended it in Parliament, and oversaw intake after intake of students who were denied their rightful places at the University of Malawi, Mzuzu University, and other institutions simply because of where they were born.
This is not a man who fought for fairness. This is not a leader who stood for equal opportunity. This is the Chief Architect and Master of Quota System, the Engineer of Discrimination.
And so, it is nothing short of insulting that he now returns to Mzuzu, the very heart of the North, peddling revisionist lies. It was the North—bright, hardworking sons and daughters of Karonga, Rumphi, Mzimba, Nkhata Bay and Chitipa—who bore the brunt of the quota system.
Brilliant students, scoring top marks, were denied entry into higher education because of a political policy designed to clip their wings.
Families in the North know this pain too well. Generations were sidelined, hopes were dimmed, futures were stolen. And at the centre of it all was one man: Arthur Peter Mutharika.
For APM to now mount the stage at Katoto, raising his voice Yavi! Yavi! Koya! Koya! as though he is a liberator, is a grotesque insult to memory and to truth. The North will not be fooled again.
It was President Lazarus Chakwera’s administration that decisively buried the quota system. It was under MCP that merit-based selection was restored, ensuring that every Malawian child — whether from Nsanje or Chitipa, from Likoma or Mwanza — had an equal shot at university.
That is the truth. That is the reality Malawians see today. And it is a reality that no amount of lies or revisionist speeches from a frail former president can erase.
So, when Peter Mutharika claims he “abolished” quota, Malawians must ask: if he truly believed it was wrong, why did he wait until February 2020, just months before an election he was destined to lose? Why did he nurture it for six years as Head of State and another five years as an influential minister including at one time at education? Why did he preside over intakes that excluded the brightest of the North?
The answer is simple. Because he never believed in equality. Because he never cared for fairness. Because the quota system was his brainchild, his instrument of division, his legacy of discrimination.
And that is why APM has no moral ground, none whatsoever, to speak on the quota system. He is the last man Malawians should ever trust on this matter.
Malawians are not blind. We are not forgetful. We know who stood for division, and we know who stands for unity and equal opportunity today.
As elections draw closer, let us remember, history cannot be rewritten by frail speeches and selective memory. The sons and daughters of Malawi deserve leaders who stand on truth, not those who stumble on their own contradictions.
And Malawians, especially the North, will not be fooled again.
