For 836 farming families at Nantipwiri in Thyolo, a political rally in 2013 was supposed to be their title deed. On 7 November 2013, former President Dr. Joyce Banda stood on a podium at Chisawani grounds and gave them land that once belonged to white farmers Dondi and Mbandanga. 

Twelve years later, that declaration is being tested by bulldozers, court rulings, and a land-swap deal with a tea estate. For the families, the dispute is not about legal jargon. It is about where they will plant maize next season and whether their children will eat.

“We have been relying on the land for many years for farming. We moved onto the estate and started cultivating the land immediately after Banda’s announcement. We cleared fields, and turned Nantipwiri into a breadbasket for Bvumbwe market,” said group chairperson Hussein Chiwalo.

Chiwalo added “this is a strategic rea. As you can see, we use those dams to cultivate and irrigate various crops like maize, cabbage, sugarcane, tomatoes, onion, banana and many more".

But the High Court later ruled that the families had no title deeds or other legal documentation to back Banda’s verbal allocation. The court gave the Ministry of Lands through the Thyolo District Council the freedom to commence plot demarcation, effectively shifting control from the farmers to the council.

The council’s next move has deepened the crisis. Using its new authority, it entered a barter transaction with Conforzi Plantation Limited. The estate, which borders Thyolo and Blantyre and covers over 40 village headmen, has now been subdivided. 

According to Chiwalo, 1.3 hectares has already been set aside for the company. In exchange, the council received land opposite the district main market and another parcel near the new stadium. 

District Commissioner Noel Dakamau confirmed the swap and said the Trade Programme is now procuring a contractor for an upstairs market at the boma, with construction expected to commence in June 2026.

For the farmers, the math is simple and painful. 

“The government verbally gave land to the people of Makande, Machinga; they are cultivating them and why should we have the papers to own this land? What the president said is a policy, so former president Dr. Joyce Banda gave this land to us and we cannot move at any point unless the president address us,” Chiwalo said. 

He added: “It is these farmers that feed the famous Bvumbwe market with fresh farm produce. So please, we are urging our president to speak on this issue.”

Another farmer Meria Suliwa Mandawala from Zungu village in the area of Sub-Traditional Maggie puts it more bluntly that reclaiming the land will leave many families with nowhere to cultivate enough food for their households.

Mandalawa said the issue gives them sleepless nights, threatens their lives and distabilizes homes.

"It is surprising that extension officers from the council's department of agriculture were helping us here with advanced and conservation farming, meaning this had a blessing from the same government, but in 2021, the then administration brought this idea of grabbing the land from us. This is really sad," she said.

She added that the concerned farmers have nowhere to go now and others are encroaching the surrounding estates to farm.

The traditional leadership echoes that desperation. Village Headwoman Kamanga from the area of Senior Chief Bvumbwe while breaking in tears, said it is surprising to see the government giving priority to foreigners after a clear process had already allocated the land to citizens. 

“I am a chief of this area because of these people. This is the land that the government gave us and it was our life, but now they want to grab it from us. Where should we go?” she asked. 

Her question reflects a wider fear in Thyolo, a district already grappling with widespread landlessness. According to the district council, at least 80 percent of the district land is covered by the white settlers estates who leased it over 100 years ago. Only 20 percent of land remained for a population of about 800,000 people after.

The concerned farmers at Nantiphwiri have been writing former president Dr. Banda and the immediate-past head of state, Dr. Lazarus Chakwera to intervene in the absence of required legal papers. 

The uncertainty has not gone unnoticed nationally. 

Last month Minister of Lands and Urban Development Chimwemwe Chipungu visited Nantipwiri and assured the farmers their grievances will be addressed. 

However, Presidential spokesperson Cathy Maulidi says President Peter Mutharika has not yet received the farmers’ letter, but will respond once it lands on his desk.

"We have not yet received their letter. We will respond accordingly once we receive it," she said.

Yet time is running out. In August 2025, the Centre for Democracy and Economic Development Initiatives wrote to the district council demanding the sale and allocation of plots be suspended until after the 16 September elections. 

CDEDI Executive Director Sylvester Namiwa alleged the council was secretly processing applications before advertising, and warned that the land had already been divided into low, medium and high-density residential plots. 

“Handling land matters without transparency risks eroding public trust, cautioning that any allocations amid corruption allegations will face “stiff resistance from the people of Thyolo.” Namiwa warned.

The tension between podium pronouncements and legal process is not limited to land in Malawi. 

In the run-up to the September 2025 polls, President Mutharika announced that he would sign an executive order to relocate Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC), Malawi Housing Corporation (MHC), Malawi Communication Regulatory Authority (MACRA) and Prison Services. And on October 10, 2025, Mutharika ordered the institutions to relocate from rented offices in Lilongwe to their respective headquarters the decision tat has thrown institutions into a constitutional test. 

For the MEC, compliance is not straightforward.

MEC Chairperson Annabel Mtalimanja says the commission filed for an injunction at the High Court in Lilongwe to suspend implementation pending determination of key legal questions about the limits of executive power. 

“The court did not look at the substantive issues. If the court determines that the president or the presidency has power to order MEC around, then that will be the end of the matter,” Mtalimanja said. 

MEC is now awaiting a new hearing date for the injunction while preparing for the substantive constitutional case. 

All this is happening when Chisankho House landlord ordered the Commission to vacate its Lilongwe offices over a major rent and lease dispute.

The landlord of the premises, Development House, formally directed the electoral body to leave after months of controversy regarding massive rent hikes allegedly of up to 75 percent which complicated operations for the electoral body.

From Nantipwiri’s furrows to MEC’s headquarters debate, the pattern is the same. Political orders made on podiums or through executive directives move faster than courts, land registries, and administrative processes. 

For poor farmers, the delay means insecurity and hunger. For institutions like MEC, it means legal battles that test the separation of powers. 

The people of Nantipwiri lost court battles owing to lack of documentation, but they gained twelve years of cultivation and community. 

Now they wait to see whether the president’s response will match the weight of a promise made from a podium, or whether the gavel will have the final word.