When the loyal and skilled manpower in Bossman became fugitives

GEORGE KAGAME

Meneja, in the ambiance of a good office perched up on the fourth floor of the marble tiled building in downtown Citi swiveled in his custom made chair. The chair itself was one of the few changes at the workplace in recent days among other things at the office. The consignment of the new office furniture arrived after news of excellent performance from Banana Inc. The good ‘practices’ agricultural cooperative had impressive postings in recent statistics and was nowadays placed in good light with government authorities and crucially, donors.

Meneja whose real name is Mwamba Wa Kuku had coined his title to his name, he was an ambitious countryman in Bossman Republic who at some point in his life turned the village corner and set up shop in the high places of the Bossman's capital far away. He now made decisions that influenced people and events, he was a powerful man.
The cooperative, formed by a local government authority initiative aimed to assist small scale businessmen and farmers in Minazi Province to grow better quality seeds and, at harvest, have appropriate avenues from which to earn a good living, Meneja headed the cooperative.

Good living was a major component of programmes put in place and effectively demanded by the highest authorities in the land.
Meneja had himself benefitted from a recent decision by the authorities to identify, search, attract and employ competent and skilled Bossmans in strategic positions in the management of the good old country. Citizenship in Bossman was not by conventional methods as other countries in granting their residency. In Bossman citizenship was open, you stood a chance without much effort and documents to acquire it. As such Bossmans were a unique lot, they were brought together in this wonderful country by circumstances of mutual interest and worked hard to develop and uphold those interests.

A national skills audit-like that for Big Brother Africa was undertaken to attract Meneja’s kind. In fact a whole national commission was established to survey, analyze or determine which sectors in Bossman’s economy were lacking of skilled manpower. As a result it had not taken much for Meneja to climb the corporate ladder. The moment it was established that he could wear well pressed trousers and polyester shirts on top of a sprinkling of a few English sentences, he easily made the grade. But it also helped that he was related or was claimed to have been born on the same village with the Director of Finance in Banana Inc.

As Meneja turned in his chair analyzing a new report, his palms were sweaty. Somehow his fortunes had turned in the immediate past and he figured that he did not have long to be hanging out in his chair. He was not only due to vacate this sweet chair, he was also facing prospects of jail with details coming in, painfully slowly, that Banana Inc was marketed very properly on paper reports, but inside funds were being fleeced by Meneja and some of his trusted corporals in management.

As a result, Meneja, until recently a brilliant example of the success of programmes and policies of the government of Bossman and the province of Minazi, was now facing the possibility of being designated as one of its terrible failures. He was not alone, like him, many of the newly established officials as per the skills hunt were yesterday villagemen turned business executives today.
A bunch of his colleagues in other cooperatives, commissions, agencies and public offices were now undergoing a new drive to replace these 'skilled' individuals who had turned corrupt and swindled from the hand that fed them. This group was now being hunted down vociferously, not really to recover the funds they had fleeced but to show other Bossmans that being corrupt was not good, and if done by government and public officials it should not be seen to be done.

The performance of Banana Inc was itself achieved after a comprehensive research and grassroots survey carried out by the respected National Institute of Statistics of Bossman-NISB. However, in a sad turn of events, the director general of NISB was himself facing arrest and prosecution for corruption, therefore even the information contained in his his statistics or their lack of was disputable. Making the glow of Banana Inc a fake.

If anyone was caught in the business of corruption they faced a few nights in police custody, the humiliation of appearing in the media as the bad apple and they also stood a chance to be unemployed for a while. The punishments for being corrupt ranged from being out of the group that will bring good life to other Bossmans and living in the ‘wilderness’ like King nebuchadenezer. The authority would ultimately have the mercy to bring you back to the good life planning group in later stages, but the immediate effect of the arrest could swing several ways and so Meneja was right to be comprehensive in his choices.

In his wisdom Meneja schemed to find a way out, to run and escape the over zealous police pawns themselves eager to be part of good life. The cops were taking their sweet time deciding first to take his ‘file’ to the national prosecution office. The PO was very eloquent in its pursuit of those it deemed sabotaging the desire to achieve good life and would gladly issue the arrest warrant.
Meneja knew with conviction the sequence of events preceding and following the copy of paper and the information it had. He was ready to take a way out. Having been a member of good life project for a while, he was assured that in his passport their was a Visa that could take him to the safety of not just one country by several of them. And his escape plan depended on his passport being near his heart and wallet and yet far away from the zealous cops.

As events unfolded, it was discovered that the head of police along with his chief of spying was under unexplained circumstances also booted and rumours were presently doing the rounds that he also faced a stunt in jail. A city mayor and an esterwhile governor in the same province were also currently doing the police and prosecution dance with a possibility of detention cells serving as a dance floor.

The mayor in particular was an interesting case, the man that had supervised his rise to mayorship was now his boss, while his former boss who had risen to higher places and left him in the province and had then fallen back. Investigations were rife that as governor, the former boss was alleged to have let one eye close as funds were being fleeced. Bossman was undergoing a serious shift of gears, starting from skilled manpower who changed into corrupt and now they were turning fugitive.

The tune of police and prosecution was a loud one in recent days. It had started with the ministry in charge of administering and or regulating, supervising, envisioning and spying on local government authorities. Two senior officials in this ministry had withered, one ending up in jail and the other utilizing his well kept passport properly to escape the prying eyes of the cops. The cops had to be fast because even the ministry official that ended up in jail was arrested while attempting a Carlos Jackal at the airport.

To be continued.......

Meneja debuts at police while Chichi is chilling on holiday

GEORGE KAGAME

Last weekend, Meneja a hitherto man of influence in Bossman Republic-a successful country as far as modern post conflict management is concerned-was analyzing his options after receiving an assessment letter that highly questioned his style of work and the organization he headed Banana Inc.

There was no doubt that the former villageman cum blue eyed boy was headed to jail. The threat of jail was in fact made in a very eloquent manner when a summon from police and the prosecuting judges appeared simultaneously. The new Bossman managers never cared less for procedures.

As such he was due to face investigation, interrogation, quizzing, arrest, detention, prosecution and imprisonment in no particular order. By the beginning of this week he was some way in dealing with the menu listed above.
One evening after being arraigned in front of a judge-another one of the Bossman's eager crew to jump on the good life wagon and not only show that the judiciary was not corrupt like other departments but also that they were watching other Bossman whose bellies and car fleets were expanding at fast paces.

As Meneja was reflecting on the various episodes in his life recently that had led to the current precarious state of his affairs, he turned his large frame in this unfamiliar new place of abode, a 50 metre squared room which also served as his detention centre and was rueful at the speed with which his candle had turned from bright light to slow burning and finally extinction. This is about the time I ventured at the police post to answer a summon myself and hopefully check out Meneja.

While Meneja was still the round cheeked poster boy of the good things happening in Bossman, our paths crossed one time. I had been once an envoy of all witch-doctors and traditional healers in Bossman to Banana Inc. During our brief encounter he was the new breed of Bossmans, a busy and time conscious lot eager to get off work and head for sports activities in the afternoon. On the other hand, I was one of the several 'necessary evils' that he was supposed to deal with in the execution of his leadership duties head of Banana Inc. The duties of assisting farmers and Bossmans involved in the agriculture industry.

At the time I tried to get his attention and sympathy at how I had been mistreated by his secretary-you see he had a pretty faced lady who acted more as his bodyguard than administrative assistant. When I tried to get an appointment with Meneja to discuss my intention to start an NGO that I envisioned would develop a network, fellowship or scheme for all witch-doctors in the country, such that the witch-doctors would assist the farmers in terms of causing an early and long rainy season enabling a richer harvest. She dismissed my idea and in a very eloquent but rude manner said her boss, (to whom she was also rumoured to be a mistress) did not have time.

So as Chichi gave me a long tirade and ridicule of my idea, she was very much convinced that she was not overstepping her authority. Now as Meneja sat lonely in his cell, Chichi was very busy lining up a job in a major telecommunications firm. Rumours were rife that she was after-all a bait. She is said to have been a mole but it was not clear whether she worked for her own security organization or that of the higher authorities and as such she moved from the arms of one influential in Bossman as easily as she entered and occupied the most prestigious of offices in the country. She was much more concerned for her forthcoming trip to shop in Dubai than Meneja's current misfortune.

The assistant, Penelope Chichi was indeed highly educated but it was with no coincidence that she seemed to have a flair of changing high profile jobs and higher men. If you thought about her life for a while she seemed to be the subject of that Kanye West Song, Gold Digger, "......... I aint saying she a gold digger, but she aint messing with no broke man......he gonna make it to a Benz from that Datsun, watch him..stay by his side."
Because of this humiliation, my idea to connect the important and necessary services of witch-doctors to the need of farmers died and I never wanted to see Chichi's well manicured fingers and expertly made up face ever. I was bitter and now as I went to visit Meneja in his cell, a part of me was hoping that he'd stay in the 'commune' for a while, be starved, be in need of company and feel the powerlessness of being out of office in an agrarian country like Bossman.

For his part, Meneja wondered what was happening to all his former colleagues who had earlier dined with him in high restaurants in Citi-the capital of Bossman). He heard that his former old chum who had been an executive in the senate was detained as was the director of the influential national organiztion in charge of public investment and external finance. Another former colleague was also rumoured to have diverted a large proportion of the national health insurance fund and his file was also doing the police+prosecution dance. It was while Meneja was busy juggling these thoughts in his mind that I made a grand entry at the police post where he was being hosted. We were not happy to see each other again. Yet I was here to help him. The witch-doctors, who had not taken lightly their being snubbed from the funds of Banana Inc were in benevolent mood now and they had sent me as an emissary to Meneja.

They knew the demons that were currently sweeping through Bossman and were ready to come to the assistance of folks like Meneja 'if only' he could promise to peddle their case through the numerous layers of bureaucracy so as they could be welcomed on the Donor Dining Table. I also carried a special message of support from Chichi, (the witches that I represented had washed me with god waters and my heart was cleansed of all its hate and I was made so attractive that Chichi was very eager to speak with me this time.) She had recorded for him a couple of songs on CD from her recent visit to the Caribbeans with her latest boyfriend.

Me: Chichi sends you her greetings and says that she is working on that 'promise' you and her had to visit Italy one day. She believes that you are very strong and will get through this current misfortune and that though she is too busy to visit you, she sends you this music to relax your soul as you deal with the heartless police summons.
Meneja: She is a bitch that woman, she is a slut. I swear I'll slap her in public when I get out of here.