Take them on, Cama

US President Barack Obama has, without doubt, inspired many a soul worldwide. From his phenomenal rise from obscurity to becoming the president of the world's most powerful nation, Obama has never been short of admirers and worshippers alike.

You can almost see the mirror image of Obama in independent presidential candidate, James Nyondo. Of course, he may not ooze similar charisma but it is hard to ignore how Nyondo has tried to model himself after the US president.

And if the truth be told, Nyondo has challenged the established political order and bar any mishap, he should give the two main presidential challengers, Bingu wa Mutharika and John Tembo, a good run for their money. The DPP government is not blind to the damage Nyondo, a spoilsport of sorts, can cause; hence, government will go to any length, be it deporting his supporters or investigating him for financial impropriety, if only to clip his wings.

Then there those who have invited Obama into their homes by naming their children after the American president.

But that is not all: the Malawi Electoral Commission (Mec), among other uncreative Malawian organisations, has stolen Obama's slogan, 'Yes, we can', as its clarion call to voters for peaceful May 19 elections.

In February, Mec launched an elections' initiative where it made minibus stickers with the phrase 'Be proud of Malawi – PEACEFUL ELECTIONS – YES, WE CAN!' Sadly, I haven't seen much of those stickers lately. I'm not so sure if that is telling disaffection with Mec and the entire electoral process or that talk of peaceful elections is a sham.

It was a daring attempt by Mec, I must confess, for them to borrow that slogan that was used to good effect by Obama. It's cool to say 'Yes, we can', but can we? For all Mec's publicised inefficiencies and gaffes, I'm looking forward to what exactly 'yes, we can' refers to. Is it 'Yes, we can goof' or 'Yes, we can have a peaceful' election? Only May 19 will tell whether it was an inspired phrase-borrowing or a doomed ambitious exercise.

The 'Yes, we can' slogan is Mec's vision statement in the elections and a vision statement, as we know it, expresses an element of ambition. We have the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (Escom) with the much maligned "Power all day, everyday" as its slogan.

It is an embarrassing slogan, to say the least, given that as I was writing this very short piece, power went out twice (and that's no exaggeration) and that highly tampered with my line of thought. Escom, as we know, is not reputed for giving its consumers power all day, everyday. On the contrary, it bears about it the embarrassing tag of a perennial crybaby about environmental degradation — a thing that is embarrassing as it is irritating.

We all know the environment is taking a knock at a faster rate than it can be corrected. That's well documented and we need no two-penny idiot to intone the same messages into our brains.

We know a depleted forestry reserve does not sit well, at least at the moment, with Escom's avowed intention to supply us with electricity 24/7.

But we also know that Escom's employees are not paid to be whining about an endangered environment all day, everyday.

We know what they are supposed to do — which is to come up with ways of sealing their environmental-degration-whining mouths once and for all by coming with lasting solutions that would make true of the slogan, "Power all day, everyday".

As it is now, Consumer Association of Malawi has every right to sue Escom for misleading its customers. But big and crucial as Escom may be, it is not the only one that is cheating consumers with empty and false slogans. There are too many of them around and they can be identified by the slogan which are lifted off somewhere and cruelly adapted.