By Staff Reporter
President Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera said Ngwazi Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s contributions to the development of this country cannot be overlooked.
President Chakwera said this at the function marking the commemoration of Kamuzu Day in Lilongwe on Thursday.
President Chakwera said although some people believe it is not worthy it to have a national commemoration for Kamuzu, the President and millions of other Malawians believe that Kamuzu Banda contributed a lot to this country that he deserves the honour.
The President implored Malawians to acknowledge such contributions rather than concentrating on his mistakes.
The Malawi leader said apart from making several social economic contributions to this country Kamuzu Banda played two distinctive roles of realization of self-rule and the ushering of democracy.
“Dr. Banda’s impact on the foundations of this nation, both in the manner he ascended to power and in a manner he used power was so consequential and monumental that reflect on him is to reflect on ourselves as people. The Ngwazi is the only figure in our nation’s history who led the nation so long that it is impossible to look at him without seeing the best and the worst of ourselves as people,” said President Chakwera.
The President also said Kamuzu’s spirit of distributing development projects equally across the regions demonstrated that Kamuzu treated Malawians equally.
‘’There are developments he built in the south, developments he built in the center and the developments he built in the north. In every region of the country he built schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, farms and airports,’’ he said.
Ngwazi Kamuzu Banda was the first president and founding father of Malawi as a nation after independence from the British rule.
Kamuzu Banda died on 25 November 1997 at the age of 99. He is a dominant figure of Malawi history after ruling the country for three decades.
Kamuzu day is commemorated on 14 May every year as his official birth date and in honour of his numerous contributions to the development of the country.
