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Introduction: The Paradox of Power The story of Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda is one of the most profound paradoxes in modern African history. He was the undisputed father of Malawian independence, the charismatic physician who returned from exile to defy the might of the Central African Federation and lead his nation to freedom. Yet, for the thirty years that followed, he ruled Malawi with an iron fist, cultivating a personality cult of bizarre proportions and presiding over one of the most repressive and idiosyncratic regimes on the continent. Banda was both a liberator and a tyrant, a man who freed…