MPs in our ruling party recently supported an unchallenged re-election run for our beloved leader. He, our star, was signed-off as the party’s sole candidate. We received the news the same way we receive all news of gallant acts of servitude to the nation – with beaming smiles and popping imaginary bottles of champagne. The real bottles cost too much. If we still had goats, we’d slaughter them and eat in celebration. Sadly, we ate all of them during the Easter festivities and the kids they left behind are still too young.
This week though, our celebrations were cut short when it was reported that our dear MPs have now asked for Shs 300 million each as a reward for that act. Talk about party poopers. What will it take to get uninterrupted celebrations around here? We’d already made orders for more food than we can eat or afford and then this? *sigh*
So, the MPs (no longer ‘our dear MPS’ or even ‘our MPs’) want the money for their own re-election campaigns. For 260 MPs, this, altogether, translates to almost 80 billion shillings. We aren’t sure where this sum will come from ( or whether our beloved leader will agree to the demand ) but if the tax payer ends up carrying the burden, he/she can take comfort in the fact that the money will, going by statistics, most likely end up as salt/sugar/soap for the rest of the populace. At its core, the MPs are probably being patriotic and using this as a wealth re-distribution technique.
You’ve got to hand it to our leader though – how do you deal with MPs making such wanton demands? Do you call in the circus to distract them? Do you let some loan sharks into the room to scare them? Do you give them an Oyo handshake to shake them off? Do you surround yourself with some mean-looking individuals from the army and then invite the MPs in for discussions? Do you use some proverbs in your mother tongue to confound them?
The bigger question though is, why are they doing this to our friend and leader? Don’t they know there’s a lot more on his plate (and we aren’t talking rolex)?