DPP regime planned to kill me – Joyce Banda

Malawi’s president Joyce Banda has said were it not for the vigilance of members of her personal security team, she could have been killed or maimed by elements in the Bingu wa Mutharika administration.

Banda told The Sunday Times of South Africa two weeks ago that she now has proof that a plot was hatched to kill her in December 2010 when she was vice president and had fallen out with Mutharika.

However, she did not say what she was going to do about it or whether arrest of the plotters was imminent.

President Banda said someone within the police security system who knew about the assassination plot advised her not to use her official vehicle because some people had arranged to involve it in an accident and eliminate her. After receiving the warning, she had changed vehicles.

Banda claims that she now has proof that the truck which hit her car was owned “by the system.”

True to the tip-off, the vice president’s official Mercedes Benz vehicle was hit by a lorry at Kanengo in Lilongwe on her way back from the airport, in what up to now has been a mysterious accident.

President Banda also told The Sunday Times of South Africa that since taking office in April, she had discovered proof that the truck that had crashed into a car in a convoy she was travelling in was aiming for her.

“I was in car number five when they hit the car I was supposed to be in. A truck came from the bush full of maize,” she said.

“I was denied access to the accident report until now that I’m president. I’ve seen that the truck was owned by the system. They hit where I was supposed to sit.”

Presidential Press Secretary Steve Nhlane has said fate and good intelligence saved the president’s life at that time.

“She was scheduled to attend a certain function within Lilongwe. But someone within the police security system who knew about the assassination plot advised her not to use her official vehicle because some people had arranged to ‘accidentalise’ it. She listened to the advice and did not use the official vehicle. And true to the warning, her official vehicle—in which she was supposed to travel to the function—was badly hit by a truck which came from the side of the road,” Nhlane said.

Nhlane said Banda was refused access to the police report on the accident, and it is only now as president that she finally got the report on what exactly happened.

“Five times, she asked the police to give her an accident report but she never got it. She only got the report when she became State President,” Nhlane said.

The accident happened soon after Banda together with Khumbo Kachali were fired from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for undefined ‘anti-party’ activities.