Tenthani's house was ransacked by an unknown assailant in 2011, following the Malawi protests against the Mutharika administration. At the height of Mutharika's crackdown on the press, he was indirectly named in a press release to the nation for being critical dated March 9, 2012, that aimed at suppressing the press. The press release referred to journalists in the country that referred to Mutharika as "Big Kahuna", a pejorative nickname that made reference to the President's increasingly dictatorial turn. Tenthani denied that this was being used to refer to Mutharika pejoratively.