I Knew He'd Lose!

I Knew He’d Lose!

Tuesday 20th

Dear Diary, My poor dear husband is so sure he’s going to win. Last night he threw a big party. All his cronies and bootlickers were eating T-bone steak and guzzling beer until the early hours of this morning, celebrating their expected victory.

When he came down to breakfast his eyes were all bleary and bloodshot. ‘Can you really win with such a gang of thieves and crooks?’ I wondered, as I hid The Post newspaper under the table.

‘Of course we shall win,’ he laughed confidently, as he poured a pint of beer over his cornflakes with one hand, while grabbing a few pork ribs with the other. ‘Crooks and thieves are the best people for this sort of work. They even helped Muwelewele to win, so how can they fail with me?’

He’s such a jolly and confident fellow, my husband, but it’s difficult to hold a serious conversation. But I keep trying. ‘It’s in the nature of thieves and crooks,’ I persisted, ‘that they cannot be trusted.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he cackled, ‘It’s in their own interest. I’ve promised twenty-five of them that they’ll be vice-president, and the other twenty-five that they’ll be minister of finance. They’re all employing every trick in the book to ensure my majority!’

‘Suppose,’ I said, ‘that they compare notes on what they’ve been promised?’

‘Impossible!’ he hooted as sank his teeth into a pigs trotter, ‘there’s not one of them can trust the other!’ So saying, he wiped his greasy fingers on the back of his trousers and stood up. ‘I must be off to the polling station, I’m due to cast an entirely clean vote for the benefit of the cameras and overseas monitors!’

Wednesday 21^st

This afternoon the entire gang was out on the patio celebrating victory. The champagne was flowing like water, and a complete ox was being turned on the spit.

My poor dear husband wasn’t even watching the results on TV, because he’s not very good at arithmetic. Even after five bottles of beer he loses count of how many he has drunk. But even so, I thought I’d better try to explain that things were not going well. So I went out onto the patio and whispered in his ear, ‘With most of the results in, you’re still four hundred thousand behind!’

‘Hah!’ he laughed. ‘You women can’t understand numbers! Wait until the numbers come in from Konama, where we’ve got more votes than registered voters!’

The dried up Velvet Mango fixed one wonky eye on me and the other on his glass of champagne, and laughed out of one side of his lop-sided mouth. ‘Not only that,’ he said smoothly, ‘but I’m reliably informed by impeccable but anonymous sources that in Konama we have more polling stations than registered voters!’

‘So don’t you worry your little head,’ said my husband, giving my bottom a friendly slap. ‘Go inside and watch your Nollywood movies. You women can’t understand these complicated matters.’

Thursday 22^nd

This morning I found him at breakfast, his head in his hands. He hadn’t touched the pork trotters.

‘I told you not to trust them,’ I said. ‘All that Donchi Kubeba, you said it was just an opposition slogan. But I warned you, didn’t I? It was aimed at your side. Nobody would tell you. They would just agree with you, then do the opposite. There was no fading ink. No ghost voters. No pre-marked ballots. No fake polling stations. No dodgy counting. No aerial arithmetic. No shushushu anywhere. You declared a national holiday, so they all took a rest.

‘Shut up!’ he said.

‘I’ll start packing,’ I said.

Friday 23^rd

This morning when he came down to breakfast he was a bit more chirpy. ‘I’ve just accepted my first official duty as the Former Leader. I’m going to open the new Ndende Prison on Chilubi Island. It was one of my favourite projects, and it’s only right that they should let me open it

‘Be careful,’ I said. ‘They might know that you were building it specially to lock up Cycle Mata on fake treason charges.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he laughed, ‘all those prison commissioners are my appointees.’

Monday 26^th

Oh Dear Diary, I am now back on the little smallholding in Chipata. All the pictures were in the newspapers this morning. Showing how my dear husband cut the lovely blue ribbon at the new Ndende Prison. Blue flags flying. Blue chitenge everywhere. Everybody waving one finger, as he went in to inspect the marvelous new facility.

Although it looked as though the place was not quite finished. Lots of walls and prison bars, but not yet fitted out with any furniture. No kitchen, canteen or anything like that. No sanitary facilities. No warders. But he insisted on going in to see the facilities.

He didn’t sense the danger until the cell door clanged behind him. He didn’t suspect anything. They had all been sworn to Donchi Kubeba.

Otherwise, apart from that, life is much as it was before. I spend most of my time watching Nollywood movies.