Nankhumwa hits back at Mutharika

Opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Vice President for the South Kondwani Nankhumwa has come out of his cocoon to blasts former President Peter Mutharika for gagging him from using Bingu wa Mutharika’s portrait.

Two days ago the social media was flooded with a campaign poster of Nankhumwa having a portrait of DPP founder Bingu wa Mutharika.

The poster angered Mutharika who retaliated by issuing a statement warning Nankhumwa against using the portrait of Bingu.

Reacting to the development Nankhumwa has lambasted Mutharika, saying Mutharika was a political nobody in the country when the party was being formed.

“I must, with due respect without fear, remind (Peter) Mutharika and the general public that DPP was founded in 2004 by the late (Bingu) Mutharika on democratic principles, hence the name. By then, fellow Malawians, the current DPP leader was not known to the general populace. It is therefore, my sincere hope that the late Mutharika remains father and founder of the once mighty DPP and deserves respect and recognition as accorded in the much contested poster.

“AS such any call against the use of the founder’s face by party officials is misinformed and lands on hard rocks. Let it also be decoded that additionally, the late Mutharika was the country’s President, hence a national figure. Therefore, his face and name shall forever be used as either the former head of state or the founder of a political party, and not necessarily as a member of a particular family,” said Nankhumwa.

Mutharika is yet to comment on the matter.