Let Them Yap!

        Let Them Yap!

Last Saturday night Sara and I were at the Playhouse to see the Lusaka Musical Society’s latest masterpiece – ‘Let Them Yap’.  As the curtain rose, there in the middle of the stage, on his gold throne, sat the magnificent Emperor of Zed. He was wearing his shimmering golden Chinese suit, a glittering crown on his head, as he looked down imperiously upon his domain.

As the orchestra in the pit struck up with a jolly tune, the Emperor rose to his feet and burst into song:

I am the Emperor of the Promised Land,

My promises are very grand.

I am an autocratic democrat,

I sit and order this and that.

And if they say I can’t do that,

I don’t care! Let them yap!

As he was singing, a motley crowd of people dressed in rags had gathered at the foot of the golden steps leading to the golden throne. And they answered the Emperor with their own song:

          You are the Emperor of the Promised Land,

          Your promises slip away like sand.

          You promised a constitution new

Not a constitutional stew.

          You cannot give us that,

          This is crap! This is crap!

But the Emperor answered them, singing:

          To ‘fifty percent plus one’ I can agree

          But only if that one is me!

          I much prefer ‘first past the post’,

          If it’s me that gets the most!

          I promised freedom of expression

          Except for those in opposition.

          And freedom to assemble anywhere

          Except in any public square.

          So be careful where you yap

          Lest you walk right in my trap

But the good people of Zed were not impressed:

          You promised you’d save the kwacha,

          But the kwacha came a cropper.

You promised all prosperity,

          But all we have is poverty.

          You are the Emperor of Zed,

          But all your promises are dead.

Now the Emperor looked a bit sad, and tried to explain himself…

          I promised more hospitals, but the curse is,

          I have no medicines, doctors or nurses.

          As all my promises slip away,

          I have other things to fill my day.

          As my ambition grows and grows

          I just build more roads and roads.

          Roads to here and roads to there,

          I build roads everywhere.

But as he was singing, a gang of thugs in fake military uniforms and red berets came shouting into the palace, and the protesters ran screaming for their lives. The audience clapped and cheered, shouting ‘More! More!’

So now the Golden Emperor walked to the front of the stage, danced a little jig, and then sang a confidential little song for our additional entertainment:

          I promise employment for the youth,

          Especially those long in the tooth.

          I’ll put an end to all corruption,

          But for my friends I’ll make exception.

          The rule of law I will preserve,

          Except for laws which don’t deserve.

          I grant to women the freedom to be bold,

          So long as they do as they’re told.

          The number of my ministers will be fewer,

          Except for those coming from the sewer.

          Once a year I’ll meet the press,

          Once a year, more or less.

          I shall maintain law and order,

          Except for panga mayhem and murder.

          And I grant to all the right to yap!

          Let them yap! Let them yap! Let them yap!

He danced a little jig as the curtain came down, and we all stood up and clapped and cheered.

‘It’s all so easy in the theatre’ said Sara. ‘But in real life, it’s a big problem to bring down the curtain.’

King Chumbu

King Chumbu

          ‘I can’t understand,’ said Thoko, ‘why people keep voting wrong leaders into government. We always finish up with people who told us they would work for us and make our lives better, but as soon as they get into office they start filling their own bellies and leaving the rest of us to starve!’

          ‘That’s how humans behave,’ I replied sadly. ‘There’s nothing to be done about it.’

          ‘Except to throw them out when their behaviour becomes intolerable!’ suggested Thoko.

          ‘Even that doesn’t help much. You can be sure that the next king will become insufferable within 90 days.’

          ‘I sometimes think,’ said Thoko, ‘that we should elect a complete simpleton as king, some half-wit just to hand out the medals on Independence Day, kick the ball to start each cup-final, wear a silly gown to open parliament, and otherwise be harmless.’

          ‘You have to be careful with that sort of thing. Idiots can be even more dangerous than clever people.’

          ‘Then why have people at all?’ laughed Thoko. ‘We could just choose a dog or a goat, and dress it up in chitenge and gold chains, to be our national symbol on ceremonial occasions.’

          ‘That reminds me,’ I laughed, ‘of the story of King Chumbu, who ruled the Land of Zed a thousand years ago.’

          ‘Really?’ said Thoko. ‘My History teacher has never told us about any King Chumbu.’

          ‘I’m not surprised,' I cackled. 'Some bits of history are best forgotten.’
          ‘So what happened?’ asked Thoko.

          ‘It was election time,’ I explained, ‘and it was time to elect the next king. At the first big election rally a joker stood up waving a large lump of sweet potato, shouting Let’s elect this sweet potato!

          ‘And the people responded enthusiastically, shouting in reply Yes, let’s elect the sweet potato. All the other kings have been sour, this chumbu is sweet. All the other kings have been pompous, let us have a humble sweet potato. Instead of the king eating us, we shall eat the king! Everybody likes the sweet potato! Chumbu for king!’

          ‘So was the chumbu elected?’

          ‘Oh yes. He was elected by a big majority, and became King Chumbu.

          ‘And was he a sweet and humble king?’

          ‘Within a day of taking office he started to swell with pride, declaring that he had been appointed by God. This came as a terrible shock to everybody!’

          ‘Because they thought they had appointed him, not God?’

          ‘No, because they didn’t think the potato could speak. They thought that they had elected a king who would remain mercifully silent. But now this one was babbling continuously in a language spoken only by other sweet potatoes, a language called Chichumba.

          ‘And the worse thing was that all the time he was babbling, he was giving orders. He ordered that all the schools should teach Chichumba, so that all the children would understand what he was saying.’

          ‘And what was he saying?’

          ‘He was saying that all the people who didn’t like sweet potatoes should be locked up for insulting the king. He was saying that there would be no more fertilizer or seeds given for growing maize, rice, cassava or sorghum. Instead everybody had to grow sweet potatoes.

          ‘He declared that God was a sweet potato, and would favour only those who were made in his image. A picture of King Chumbu had to be on every wall, every chitenge and every coin. He changed the name of the country from Zed to Chumbia, with a national motto of One Chumbia One Chumbu.  At the big state occasions people no longer marched up and down, but now had to roll on the ground as if they hadn’t got legs, pretending to be sweet potatoes, and groveling in front of the Great Chumbu.

          ‘How ridiculous!’

          ‘State occasions are always ridiculous.’

          ‘And did people resist all this nonsense?’

          ‘Thoko, you know how people are. They just want to fit into the system, and get jobs by flattering the appointing authority. They began to eat plenty of sweet potatoes to fatten themselves into shapeless lumps, so that they looked more like the king. The more successful of them actually became sweet potatoes.’

          ‘Didn’t some people resist?’

          ‘A few people held meetings to discuss whether the end of human civilisation was a good idea. They were arrested and imprisoned for holding secret meetings without a permit, and for sedition and for treason.’

          ‘Good gracious!’ exclaimed Thoko. ‘Didn’t that contradict their right to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression?’

          ‘King Chumbu had confiscated their constitution and instead written his own constitution on a single leaf of kalembula.’

          ‘Wasn’t that a bit small for writing a constitution?’

          ‘Not really. It just read Never offend King Chumbu. He is the law, the judgment and the imprisonment.’

          ‘He wouldn’t listen to any discontent?’

          ‘A chumbu has no ears to listen. No way of bending without breaking. He is chumbu mushololwa. A perfect choice for a dictator.’

          ‘So how did it all end? How was the Land of Zed restored to us humans?’

          ‘It was after the king had flattened the Zambezi Forest Reserve and in its place put the King’s Chumbu Plantation. That was the year of the Great Plague. A terrible fungus called Chumbu Catastrophicus wiped out all the chumbu in Chumbia. Within three months there wasn’t a single sweet potato left in the land.’

          ‘The human’s returned?’

          ‘The few hundred remaining Zedians escaped from jail. Others returned from the diaspora. Human civilization was restored.’

          ‘So luckily God changed his mind about King Chumbu.’

          ‘I suppose so,’ I replied. ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.’

         

         

          

A Disappearing King

A Disappearing King

          

          ‘A long time ago, in the land of King Ukwa, strange things began to happen. Things began to mysteriously disappear.’

          ‘Such as what?’ asked Nawiti.

          ‘One day the king made a promise that people would wake up the next morning with more money in their pockets. But the next morning they didn’t find the money. It had just disappeared’

          ‘Silly Grandpa,’ laughed Nawiti, ‘the money was never there in the first place, so you can’t say it disappeared. A thing has to appear before it can disappear.’

          ‘You’re right about that,’ I agreed. ‘It wasn’t the money that disappeared, it was the promise.’

          ‘Promises usually disappear,’ laughed Nawiti. ‘Mummy promised to buy me a bicycle if I was a good girl, but I never got it.’

          ‘Maybe you weren’t a good girl.’

          ‘I was a very good girl but she was a very bad girl for not buying me the bicycle.’

          ‘King Ukwa,' I said, 'even went so far as to promise the people a new constitution. But they never got it.’

          ‘I’m not surprised at all,’ said Nawiti. ‘This is my experience with grown-ups; I don’t believe a word they say.’

          ‘Not only did they not get a new constitution,' I countered, 'but even the old constitution began to disappear.’

          ‘Oh dear,’ said Nawiti, ‘now that was more serious.’

          ‘Exactly,’ I replied. ‘One day the Chief Justice just disappeared.’

          ‘Woops,’ said Nawiti. ‘Isn’t the Chief Justice the very one who is supposed to protect the people from the king?’

          ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘And then other people began to disappear. One day the managers of a factory just disappeared, and the next day a different set of managers appeared from nowhere.’

          ‘What is a factory, Grandpa?’

          ‘It’s a huge machine for sucking blood out of the workers and money out of the country.’

          ‘So what was happening to all that money?’

          ‘It was just disappearing,’ I said. ‘So now the people were getting very angry, and a delegation went to the king to voice their complaints.’

          ‘And did the king listen to them?’

          ‘That’s when the problem of disappearance got even worse,’ I said grimly. ‘The king’s hearing had developed a tendency to disappear, especially when anybody voiced a  complaint.’

          ‘But really,’ said Nawiti, ‘couldn’t the king see problems for himself?’

          ‘The problem made the problem worse. His sight would disappear whenever he looked at a problem.’

          ‘But didn’t he realize that his sight had disappeared?’

          ‘No, he merely thought that the problem had disappeared.’

          ‘So the main problem was the disappearance of the problem,’ said Nawiti.

          ‘And that’s a very big problem,’ I said, ‘because it’s very difficult to see something that has disappeared. But then things got even worse. One day, when the king was appointing a new minister, something very strange happened. The new minister had just signed his oath swearing  to obey all instructions from the king irrespective of how unconstitutional, and was handing the piece of paper back to the king, when the king entirely disappeared. The whole room full of royal bootlickers stood there aghast as the piece of paper fluttered to the floor, because the receiving hand of the king had gone missing. Before anybody could say a word, the king miraculously reappeared, roaring loudly Is this is how you return your oath of office to your king? By throwing it on the floor? This is lack of respect for your king! You are fired, with immediate effect!’

          ‘The king couldn’t see that he hadn't been there?’ chuckled Nawiti.

          ‘It’s not possible to see your own disappearance,’ I explained. ‘Only others can see it. And they were very disturbed, saying one to another We need a man of substance, not someone who disappears, while others asked Is this man really made of royal material?’

          ‘Was this the only time the king disappeared? Nawiti wondered.

          ‘The next time was worse,' I admitted. 'He disappeared for an entire week, and everybody in the land was talking about it. But the Minister for Lies and Propaganda insisted that he king was in his palace, wrestling with the problem of sudden disappearances. Surprisingly, a week later the same minister announced that the king had returned from India after consulting a sangoma on the strange problem of sudden disappearances. But people whispered one to another How can he return if he never left?’

          ‘And did he find the answer in India?’ asked Nawiti.

          ‘Apparently not,’ I said, ‘because a few days later there was a terrible coach accident on the main road between the City of Work and the City of Sin, and fifty people disappeared. The whole nation was in mourning. Churches services were held all over the country asking God why he had forsaken them, and asking for His divine intervention.’

          ‘And was God listening?’ wondered Nawiti. ‘Or had he also disappeared?’

          ‘Nobody knows,’ I said. ‘But soon afterwards the king disappeared again, and this time nobody could find him. They searched the palace and even the tunnels under the palace. They searched the bedrooms of all his wives. They visited all the sangomas in India but none had seen him. They visited all the freezers in all the military hospitals in France, but none had him. They even searched the sewers. They held Church services and prayed for the king, and pleaded with God to send him back.’

          ‘They’re still waiting for Jesus to come back,’ observed Nawiti sadly.

          ‘But in the end they gave up the hopeless quest, and instead learnt to govern themselves with a new system which they called democracy. After that, they didn’t need a king anymore.’

          ‘I always like happy ending,’ laughed Nawiti, clapping her hands. ‘The problem just disappeared!’

           

         

            

Ukwa in Mufumbwe

Ukwa in Mufumbwe

            Monday evening, and Sara and I had settled down in front of the TV. ‘We now take you over to Mufumbwe,’ said Master Chambala. ‘Sensitive viewers should turn off their TVs.’

          ‘Ooh, I do love the Freak Show News,’ I declared. ‘They bring us such horrible stories.’

          ‘My God!’gasped Sara, as the TV picture showed the main street of a small threadbare town in the middle of nowhere. ‘That place can’t have changed since colonial times!’

          ‘It’s changed a lot,’ I laughed. ‘Fifty years ago it had bright shiny steel roofs, but now they’ve all gone rusty.’

          As we were talking the camera was focusing on a rising cloud of dust in the distance. Suddenly, out of this dust appeared a speeding convoy of Landcruisers with sirens wailing and green flags flying, finally coming to a screeching halt in the middle of the empty street. On the top of a gold-plated Landcruiser was the Royal Pabwata of King Ukwa, and sitting in the boat was the King himself, resplendent in his official ceremonial gold silk Chinese suit.

          The King rose slowly and regally to address the crowd. There wasn’t one. Quickly his coterie of sycophants and goons leapt out of their vehicles and began waving brown envelopes and green chitenges, and a few people began to cautiously venture out from behind their closed doors. In the meantime, the King’s chauffeur connected the battery of the Golden Royal Lancruiser to a microphone, which he then handed to the King.

          ‘This must be the first time they’ve seen electricity,’ said Sara.

          ‘It’ll soon be gone again,’ I sighed.

          King Ukwa was now standing in his Royal Pabwato scowling angrily at a motley crowd of about fifty people, mostly old people and small children, all very thin and wearing rags.

          ‘I have brought you your candidate!’ he shouted. Then, turning to one of his goons in black suit and dark glasses, he shouted ‘What have you done with my candidate?’

          As he spoke, two goons rushed forward dragging a small thin fellow with vacant uncoordinated rolling eyes and a loose mouth which dripped saliva. ‘What’s your name?’ shouted the King.

          ‘Musumbi, O King,’ whined the little fellow.

          ‘Mushula!’ shouted the King. ‘Kneel before your constituents.’

          ‘This is your new member of parliament,’ the King shouted at the sullen gathering. ‘Vote for him and you’ll all be rich! Vote for the other party and you’ll die in poverty! Any questions?’

          ‘Yes,’ shouted an old woman. ‘We’re all dying of thirst! There’s no water in the river!’

          ‘You don’t have to tell me that there’s no water in the river,’ shouted the King angrily. ‘Can’t you see that I had to bring my Royal Pabwato all the way by road because there is no water in the river? I have been inconvenienced far more than you!’

          ‘Why is there no water in the river?’ persisted the old woman.

          ‘Because you voted for the wrong party last time!’ shouted the King angrily. ‘That’s why you’ve got no development here! That’s why I’m giving you a second chance by bringing you this Mushula!’

          ‘Musumbi,’ said the goon.

          ‘His name is Pabwato,’ shouted the King, ‘that’s what matters.’

          ‘He looks a bit simple,’ said a voice from the back.

          ‘That’s why he’s representing you,’ shouted the king angrily. ‘You’re all a bit simple, that’s why you keep voting for the wrong party! That’s why you voted for the Movement for Mental Deficiency instead of Pabwato Fiasco!’

          ‘But why is there no water in the river?’ repeated the old woman.

          ‘You all know very well why you’ve got no water!’ replied the King angrily. ‘You’ve got no water because you live downstream from Chuminga, which had the sense to vote for me in the last election. So I have brought them development. I have built a dam for the Ching Chang rice plantation which will export rice to China. I have built a dam for the Fing Fang Fong Fish Farm and another dam for the Die Soon Crocodile Farm.’

          ‘Is there no water left over?’

          ‘Yes, plenty,’ smirked the King. ‘The excess water has been diverted to the leach plant at Kansanshi Mine, to make copper so that one day I shall be able to bring you electricity.’

          ‘When?’ said the old woman suspiciously.

          ‘After you have voted for Mushula,’ said the King.

          ‘Musumbi,’ groaned the goon.

          ‘Let me explain the situation in simple terms,’ growled the King. ‘Supposing you had only one cup of water left in your house, would you give that water to your own child or to a stranger?’

          ‘We all need water!’ shouted the old woman.

          ‘Development is about choices,’ sneered the King. ‘And the choice is yours. Vote Pabwato and I shall bring you water!’

          ‘Wrong way round!’ retorted the old woman. ‘Bring us water and we shall vote Pabwato!’ But as she was shouting six goons jumped on her and used their batons to beat her to the ground, and the remainder of the motley crowd ran away screaming.

          ‘My God!’ I said to Sara. ‘What’s happening?’

          ‘She’s committed a serious offence under the Public Order Act,’ Sara explained. ‘She’s protesting without a permit.’

­­­­­­_____________________________

          Friday evening TV News, and at last the announcement of the results: ‘In the Mufumbwe by-election the MMD candidate, Mr Stalwart Mulunshi, has won by a stunning margin of 8,549 votes, with the Pabwato candidate, Mr Simple Musumbi, scoring a perfect zero.’

          ‘That means,’ I said, ‘that he didn’t even vote for himself.’

          ‘Perhaps he was so intellectually challenged,’ laughed Sara, ‘that he forgot to register to vote.’ 

Coup d'Etat

Coup d’Etat

          It was late at night in the kitchen, but the Kitchen Cabinet was still discussing what to do with the country, now that they had accidentally taken control of it. As on previous evenings, the discussion seemed to be going nowhere.

          ‘The trouble is,’ said Dotty Scotty, ‘people want us to honour our election promises.’

          ‘That’s not the problem,’ growled the Great Bag of Maize. ‘The problem is that the opposition keeps reminding us of our election promises.’

          ‘Oh really?’ asked Feckless Shambles. ‘What were our election promises?’

          This high level intellectual discussion was suddenly interrupted by Cycle Mata, who had been sitting at the kitchen table playing with his jig-saw of Zambia. ‘I think I’ve got the answer,’ he said, as he moved one of the jig-saw pieces. ‘If I move Northern Province down to Eastern Province then all the Bemba will become farmers.’

          ‘Hurray,’ they all applauded politely. ‘What a strategist! What a genius! Another Napoleon come to lead us!’

          Cycle Mata was so encouraged by such high praise that he now slid Eastern Province to the edge of the table and let it drop down onto the floor. ‘And the Easterners can go down to Matebeleland, where my friend Robber Mugabby will know what to do with them.’

          But this remark failed to raise a second round of applause, and the kitchen fell quiet as Axe Chikwale reached for his whisky bottle.

          At last the Great Bag broke the silence. ‘What we need is a coup d’etat,’ he declared.

          Dotty Scotty opened one eye and scratched his dandruff. ‘My dear fellow, were you ever to consult a dictionary you would discover that coup d’etat means using force to illegally capture state power. It may perhaps have escaped your attention, but we have already captured state power.’

          ‘Obviously,’ sighed the Great Bag of Maize, with his usual contempt for the limited intelligence of the educated, ‘we shall not be the ones doing it. The coup d’etat will be mounted by the opposition. They have been calling us sleepy fools with no ideas and openly saying that they want to take over the government.’

          ‘So you want to let them do it?’ asked Dotty Scotty.

          The Great Bag slowly leant forward and took a large spoonful of caviar from the bowl in the middle of the table and plastered it onto a huge lump of nshima, which he then shoved into his sloppy cavernous mouth. Finally, after swallowing this generous slice of the national budget, he looked towards Dotty and said sarcastically ‘Rather than waiting for them do it, I thought it might be better to catch them while they are still planning it.’

          ‘And how are you going to catch them planning it?’ wondered Dotty.

          As he spoke, there was a loud snore from under the table, and the Great Bag angrily aimed a kick at the unconscious body of Eager Bungle, Minister for Home Invasions and Fishing Expeditions. ‘He’s been completely drunk,’ shouted the Great Bag of Maize, ‘since we allowed him to confiscate all the tujilijili. If I had his job I would have thrown all these coup plotters in jail months ago!’

          This remark seemed to divert Cycle Mata’s interest away from his jig-saw. ‘Great Bag of Maize, I hereby appoint you as Minister of the newly combined Ministry of Patriotic Fighters, Home Invasions and Fishing Expeditions. Eager Bungle now becomes the fourth Deputy Minister in the newly created Ministry of Alcoholic Rehabiliation.’

          ‘Hurray,’ they all cheered. ‘A new Napoleon to lead us out of national confusion!’

          ‘Give me another Napoleon tujilijili,’ said a slurred voice from under the table.

          ‘So what’s your plan?’ Dotty Scotty asked the Great Bag of Maize.

          ‘Tell us! Tell us!’ said Cycle Mata eagerly. ‘A plan! A plan! My kingdom for a plan!’

          ‘My plan is simple and three-fold,’ replied the Great Bag. ‘Firstly I shall have my army surround State House to shoot down the Bullet that the coup plotters fired last November in their attempt to assassinate our Beloved Leader.’

          ‘If it was fired last November, shouldn’t it have arrived by now?’

          ‘It was very slow moving. Intelligence information is that they used Bullet instead of Boom.’

          ‘And the second part of the plan?’

          ‘I shall have my army surround the opposition HQ in Lagos Road, and then send my bombers to destroy the inflammatory material they intended to use against the government.’

          ‘What inflammatory material is that?’

          ‘They have stolen medical records showing that three quarters of the Cabinet comes from Kasama.’

          ‘That information is surely incorrect,’ said Cycle Mata sternly.

          ‘They deliberately selected that information to mislead the public,’ explained the Great Bag. ‘It so happens that I weigh 750kg, whereas the combined weight of all the others in the Cabinet adds up to only 250kg.’

          ‘And the third part of your plan?’

          ‘As the coup plotters flee the bombs, they will be found guilty of attacking us as they hit their heads against our batons and rifle butts.’

          ‘Very good,’ said Cycle Mata. ‘This will teach the opposition not to tell lies about us.’

­­­­­­­­­­­­­____________________

  

          The next afternoon the Kitchen Cabinet was sitting around the kitchen table awaiting news of the coup d’etat. Suddenly the Great Bag’s phone rang. ‘Hallo? Hallo? You bombed what? Where? You eedjit, I said Lagos Road, not Lagos. What? Declared war? Oh My God!’

          He turned to the others. ‘Nigeria has declared war!’

          ‘Oh good,’ said Dotty Scotty. ‘This will unite the people against the common enemy, and we shall have to lock up all the subversive elements that might undermine national unity!’

          ‘Yes!’ said Cycle Mata. ‘We’ve got a plan at last!’ 

Witch Hunt

Witch Hunt

          ‘Mr Ha Ha,’ said the judge, as he leant towards the accused, ‘you have been charged with landing as mfwiti on the roof the girls’ hostel of Evelyn Horny College. You were found naked in the girls’ shower, thereby causing a great itching of the girls’ private parts and giving all the students such a terrible fright as to cause a massive and simultaneous blocking of all the toilets. What is your explanation for your inexplicable behaviour?’

          ‘Ha ha ha,’ laughed Ha Ha, ‘I wonder what is the explanation for your inexplicable accusations? I did not arrive by mfwiti, nor was I found naked.  I walked fully clothed through the front gate and talked to some of the girls.  They told me about the filthy condition of the bathrooms that had caused itching of their private parts.’

          ‘I’m not sure if you appreciate the seriousness of the charges against you,’ said the judge sternly. ‘You are charged with several counts of witchcraft which were deliberately aimed at bringing this government into disrepute. With your dreadful spells, curses, charms and incantations you have destroyed the students’ itch for education and replaced it with a carnal itch in their private parts.’

          ‘Nonsense,’ laughed Ha Ha, who was clearly enjoying this moment of fame provided free of charge by the government. ‘The problem of itching was caused by the Minister for Closing Colleges, the notorious Pompous Professor Red Hot Piri-Piri, who got the students into such a red hot rage that they were itching to…’

          ‘That’s another of the charges against you,’ interrupted the judge. ‘Insulting the minister is bordering on insulting the appointing authority, which is bordering on defamation of the president, which is bordering on contravention of the Section 23 of the Suspension of Free Speech Act of 1893.’

          ‘This trial is just part of a witch hunt,’ sneered Ha Ha. ‘You are just trying to blame imaginary witches for turning the Patriotic Fanfare into the Pabwato Fiasco!’

          ‘Ha ha, Mr Ha Ha,’ sneered the judge, ‘suddenly you seem to know a lot about witchcraft! I hope you also know that witchcraft is illegal under Section 257 Paragraph 279 Clause 59 of the Penal Code of 1892. We must observe the Rule of Law.’

          ‘Yes,’ muttered someone in the crowd, ‘We must observe the Rule of Law!’

          ‘Where is the Rule of Law?’ said another, as he looked around, and others looked under their seats.’

          ‘Perhaps the Rule of Law went to the toilet,’ said somebody else.

          ‘There’s certainly a nasty smell from the somewhere,’ chuckled another.

          ‘Silence!’ shouted the judge.

          ‘You are also accused of using your mfwiti to send a platoon of the Punching Fist Militia to Sudan, and then accusing the Perfect Farce of sending them there for military training. This dangerous long distance witchcraft was calculated to make the PF look foolish.’

          ‘They need no assistance from me,’ laughed Ha Ha. ‘They do it very well all by themselves.’

          ‘Ha ha ha ha,’ laughed the crowd.

          ‘You are also accused,’ continued the judge, ‘of putting powerful muti all around the entrance to Collum Mine to prevent it being visited by mine inspectors, thereby causing appalling conditions in the mine. That is how you deliberately caused a riot just to embarrass the government.

          ‘There is also evidence,’ said the judge, ‘that the same evil muti was used to disorientate the police when they attempted to question you at Lusaka Central Torture Station. This muti caused police to fire tear gas canisters into a closed space, thereby making you entirely responsible for their unprofessional and murderous behaviour.

          ‘The government’s entire programme of implementing its election promises has had to be suspended in order to counter your relentless programme of subversive anti-government witchcraft. You are therefore also being charged with treason.

          ‘I now adjourn this case until next month, when you will be found guilty and sentenced. Just count yourself lucky that you live in a democracy where we follow the due process of law.’

          Now the judge turned to the Clerk of Court. ‘Is that the last case for this morning?’

          ‘No, M’Lord,’ answered the Clerk, as a tall bearded man in a long white cassock appeared in the dock. ‘There’s one more.’

          ‘One more witchcraft?’

          ‘Even worse,’ answered the Clerk. ‘Christianity!’

          The judge looked severely towards the accused. ‘What is your name?’

          ‘Jesus Christ,’ he replied.

          ‘Don’t be funny with me,’ snapped the judge. ‘Taking the name of the Lord in vain is an offence under the Ten Commandments Act of 4372BC, Section 5.’

          Then he turned to the Clerk. ‘What else has he done?’

          ‘He announced from his pulpit that the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer, contrary to the prophecy in the Gospel according to St Michael.’

          ‘Verily I say unto you,’ said Jesus, ‘I have never heard of your St Michael, and answer only to the authority of My Father who is in Heaven.’

          ‘Heresy!’ declared the judge. ‘In our Christian Nation the authority of scripture must be respected! I order him to be deported immediately!’

          No sooner had he spoken than Jesus began to rise vertically from the dock. Up he floated, up through the high open window, up and away.

          ‘That’s witchcraft!’ said the judge, as all eyes were raised to Heaven. ‘I should have given him five years for contravening the Law of Gravity!’

          ‘Two thousand years we waited for Him to return,’ said a voice from the back, ‘and He didn’t last five minutes.’

          ‘Silence!’ shouted the judge.

Gone Missing

Gone Missing

            It was the strangest case of a missing person that I had ever heard of. Because, you see, usually you’ve never heard of the person until they go missing. They become famous by going missing.

          This was scarcely the case with the famous Employment Policy. He was already famous before he went missing. He rose to fame last September, standing on the election platform and promising everybody ‘Vote for me and I’ll bring full employment!’ And he won by a landslide.

          But after the election, when the excitement had finally died down, and different people had been assigned ministerial jobs, and the president’s friends and relatives had all been given jobs in diplomatic missions, it gradually began to dawn on people that the famous Employment Policy had gone missing.

          Where was he? Where was his constituency? Which was his ministry? Had he been given a job? Was he unemployed? As the weeks went by, and the weeks turned into months, these were the questions that people were asking each other. They couldn’t ask the president, because he adamantly refused to hold a press conference. And so the mystery continued, and deepened.

          That was when my editor called me in. ‘Look Kalaki,’ he said, ‘you’re supposed to be my Chief Investigative Reporter, but you’ve never investigated anything!’

          ‘On the other hand,’ I retorted, ‘You’ve never paid me anything!’

          ‘That’s because you’ve never investigated anything!’ he sneered. ‘Get off your backside and find out what happened to the famous Employment Policy. Has he been allocated to a non-existent ministry? Decentralised? Reshuffled? Merged? Murdered? Dismembered? Or what?’

          So I phoned Dotty Scotty. ‘Hallo,’ he replied, ‘This is the Vice-President in charge of Cutting Ribbons, Funerals and Miscellaneous Ceremonials.’

          ‘I thought,’ I said, ‘that you were also in charge of Disaster Management.’

          ‘That also,’ he admitted. ‘I’m very good at disasters. Which disaster are you particularly interested in?’

          ‘Employment Policy,’ I said. ‘He seems to have disappeared. I can’t find him anywhere.’

          ‘I only deal with sudden disasters like floods and by-elections,’ he explained. ‘Employment Policy is not a sudden disaster, he’s a long-term problem, an unsolved mystery. I suggest you try Education. When it comes to impossible problems, we usually just add them to the curriculum.’

          So I phoned the Honorable Minister for Insulting Students, Professor Pompous Phiri-Phiri. ‘This is Kalaki here,’ I said, ‘I wonder whether I might find Employment Policy at your ministry?’

          ‘Certainly not!’ he shouted angrily. ‘Education has nothing to do with employment. That’s why all of my students remain unemployed. Sitting around in classrooms for twenty years has made them completely unemployable!’

          ‘Then Honorable Minister, without upsetting yourself any further, perhaps you could give me a hint on where I might find the famous Employment Policy.’

          ‘I suggest you talk to an employer,’ he shouted. ‘He’s the sort of fellow to have an Employment Policy.’

          So I rang Lumano Mine, and asked the Mine Manager, Mr Boss Muzungu. ‘Nobody of that name here,’ he answered. ‘We have only three employees – myself as Managing Director, my wife as the Mine Secretary, and my son as the General Manager.’

          ‘Good God!’ I exclaimed, ‘I thought you employed thousands!’

          ‘We have a contract with Modern Slavery Ltd,’ he explained. ‘The mine provides only essential equipment for their labour force.’

          ‘Such as overalls, boots, hardhats and that sort of thing?’

          ‘No. We only provide essential control equipment such as whips, shackles, batons, handcuffs and that sort of thing.’

          ‘So you don’t have any Employment Policy?’

          ‘Certainly not. Not here. Try the Ministry of Labour. I’m told they have an office in Lusaka. But they never come here.’

          So I phoned poor old Feckless Shambles. ‘Is that the Ministry of Labour?’ I asked.

          ‘Certainly not,’ he snapped irritably. ‘This is the Ministry of Information! No, wait, I mean this is Youth and Sport. No, half a minute, it’s Youth without the Sport. Is that Kalaki? No, you’re right, this is Labour, I’d quite forgotten. You caught me in the middle of my afternoon nap.’

          ‘Do you have the famous Employment Policy?’ I asked.

          ‘With all these reshuffles,’ sighed Feckless, ‘the poor fellow got lost. He’s been reported as a missing person. Phone the Suspector General.’

          So I did. ‘Hullo,’ I said. ‘This is Kalaki from the Daily Notion. I’m told that the famous Employment Policy has been reported as missing. What are you doing to find him?’

          ‘My dear Kalaki,’ she assured me, ‘This is a caring government, so everything possible is being done. The vendors are being swept off the street so that they can join the search. School leavers are being sent to the Zambian National Service and trained in how to look for Employment Policy. The World Bank is funding the search, they’ve always wanted us to find our own Employment Policy. Within ninety days we expect a million people to join the search!’

          I was so impressed that I rang Dotty Scotty. ‘A million people will soon be employed to search for our famous Employment Policy,’ I told him. ‘This will solve the employment problem!’

          ‘You see! Let this be a lesson to you!’ cackled Dotty Scotty. ‘You must trust this government, and not be criticizing us all the time!’

          ‘There’s only one problem,’ I said.

          ‘What’s that?’ he wondered.

          ‘If they find our dear Employment Policy, they’ll all be out of work again! And people will blame PF’

          ‘PF?’
          ‘Yes, PF,’ I said. ‘Policy Failure!’