Haven't you seen on computers that there is American English, UK English, South African English etc. In Africa, there many "types" of English; the differences are, however, are not in terms of writing but in terms of accent. The poor quality of writing that you have seen is probably due to the poor English language skills in our midst. It just tells you the status of our education systems.

I am certainly aware of the different versions of English, thats why I asked the question, if African English was a "[legitimate]dialect or just bad grammar? I'm actually very sympathetic to the argument that what I am reading is not "poor" English at all but rather a legitimate variant of English. On the other hand, if it is really just poor English, to what standard of already existing English should Malawians aspire to, British or American, or does it really matter?