Last Orders at Harrods

by Michael Holman

  He was openly dismissive of cabinet colleagues who lacked his education, and he was contemptuous of those who could not exchange epigrams in Latin. The transition from Nduka the democrat to Nduka, authoritarian political dinosaur, was complete by the end of his second five-year term in office, by which time he had started to accumulate the trappings of the international respectability he craved. He was awarded a doctorate by his alma mater, Edinburgh, and a second one by an obscure southern US college.

  Nduka never missed a summit of Commonwealth heads of government. Pearson had included a splendid quote in the profile: “Commonwealth conferences are the only occasion I can debate with my equals,” he once quipped.

  “Commonwealth conferences are the only time the President’s equals can speak up and not get arrested,” rejoined an editorial in the independent daily, the Kuwisha Times. The profile noted that the paper’s editor was detained two days later. Allegations that he had been trading on the black market would take “many months” to investigate, said the chief of police.

  Yes, the president was a formidable adversary, Fingers acknowledged as he explored his ears, and sucked his teeth after lengthy probing with a wooden pick. This ritual over, he made a fresh start, preparing the communiqué that would be released when the talks with Kuwisha officials had been concluded.

  He pecked out the words on his laptop with a stubby, nicotine-stained forefinger with surprising speed. There was no time to lose. A technical committee of the two sides was due to meet soon, and before that took place, the Bank had to put down a marker. It was after all Hardwicke’s first visit. He could not afford to look soft:

  “Promise and challenge in Kuwisha . . .” he wrote.

  That would show them, thought Fingers, that would really show ’em!

  From President Nduka’s standpoint the talks had been a great success. A television crew from the state-owned national station was there for the arrival of the Bank team, as was a photographer and journalist from the Kuwisha Daily News, the daily paper owned by the ruling party. To anyone familiar with the ways of the president, their presence amounted to a clear warning: something was afoot.

  As the television camera rolled, and the photographer snapped away, President Nduka embraced Hardwicke, and grasped his victim’s right hand with both of his. He then replaced his expression of warm welcome with one of immense solemnity, and made an announcement to camera.

  “I want to welcome Mr Hardwick Hardwicke, president of the World Bank, and his colleague Mr James Adams. Welcome to Kuwisha.

  “And Mr Reuttman, who is soon to leave us,” the president added, dismissively.

  “We have a lot to talk about this morning. Mr Hardwicke has a busy schedule, which will include a visit to my neighbours, the hard-working people of Kireba. But it is good that we will talk. I will remind our friend from the Bank that we were one of the first governments to welcome greater efforts to ensure transparency, although here in Kuwisha we prefer to speak frankly. No “transparency” nonsense for us! We call it corruption. We must end corruption. We are very concerned about corruption.”

  He pronounced it “corrup-shun”, with a pause between the two syllables, and the emphasis on the last, like an old-fashioned sergeant major drilling new recruits.

  “And I have some very important things to say. First, I must thank Mr Hardwicke for responding so promptly to my request to come to Kuwisha. We know he is a very busy man. Second, I want him to know what we are doing to tackle this evil, this corruption.”

  He beamed at Hardwicke, who had barely been able contain his irritation. Far from encouraging his visit, the president had resisted until the last minute. As for tackling corruption! Nduka had been stalling for months . . .

  The president then proceeded to take the wind out of the World Bank sails, announcing a series of ministerial sackings, cabinet promotions and demotions, beginning with the news that the former leader of the opposition had been appointed chairman of Kuwisha’s anti-corruption authority.

  The matter of the missing petroleum levy was also dealt with by Nduka. Among the ministers sacked was the secretary of state for feeder roads, who had diverted the levy with the assistance of the minister of works, who had been appointed ambassador to Zambia.

  Nduka held back, however, on the alleged involvement of his son-in-law in the unusually costly contract to service the Vosper patrol boats bought from the United Kingdom. It had been on the agenda for the talks, but the matter was postponed at the request of the British High Commissioner, who urged caution pending the outcome of an interdepartmental investigation in Whitehall, and – though he didn’t say this, the result of an upcoming by-election in the north of England constituency where the boats had been built.

  Nor had the high commissioner thought it sensible to ask Hardwicke to raise the maize contract. That, too, was being pursued through what he called “appropriate channels”. And it was not the time or place to discuss the presidential jet. It was far from clear just how much had gone in commission payments to the maker’s own sales staff.

  Nduka beamed benignly into the camera.

  “Now we must now get down to work. But I know that the President of the World Bank wants to say a few words.”

  Hardwicke stumbled through a few platitudes. By sacking three cabinet ministers and promising an immediate inquiry by the newly constituted anti-corruption committee, the president had effectively pre-empted his complaints.

  Together they walked in through the main State House entrance, under the arch of elephants’ tusks, yellowed with age, and past the stuffed lion, shot by a governor general in the early days of British rule.

  The last the television viewers saw of them on their screens that night was the two men walking, still hand in hand, past the courtyard and the water fountain, about to enter the president’s study. Fingers, Reuttman and Nduka’s private secretary brought up the rear, a deferential five paces behind them.

  Once out of camera range, the president had dropped Hardwicke’s hand, his demeanour changing abruptly. The president was usually punctilious in observing the courtesies of these occasions. This time, however, he abruptly excused himself, saying that he had to conclude a previous appointment.

  Nduka had then kept Hardwicke waiting in the State House ante-room for a carefully calculated twenty minutes, long enough to put the visitor in his place, yet just short of being blatantly rude – but only by the minute or two before Hardwicke’s short temper would blow.

  Nduka had ordered further refinements calculated to make the wait uncomfortable. The air-conditioning clanked to a halt five minutes after Hardwicke had been shown into the State House ante-room, with its red velveteen armchairs and heavy drape curtain that ensured that not the faintest flicker of light – or fresh air – could penetrate the room, or enhance the dull glow of the 40-watt bulbs in the ornate chandeliers.

  In a final turn of the screw, Nduka had also instructed the duty steward to serve bottles of the sickly-sweet, local orangeade, which had been left in the Kuwisha sun for several minutes. When the meeting finally got under way, Nduka had run rings around the hot, unhappy American. He wasted no time on courtesies, immediately set out in detail the anti-corruption measures he had announced earlier, and continued on the offensive.

  “Now tell me, Mr President, what is the new fashion you wish my people to follow? Gender? Environment? Intermediate technology, or is it perhaps appropriate technology? Where is the next boost for Kuwisha’s economy going to come from? Let me guess. Micro lending, small business, and stimulation of the informal sector? I doubt that it will be in the form of fair international prices for our tea and coffee.”

  Nduka was getting into his stride.

  Fingers, invariably the note taker at these meetings, scribbled furiously.

  “Improved management capacity, or irrigation schemes? Good governance? Transparency? Multi-party politics? Institution building?”

  Next in line for the president’s vitriol was Henry Reuttman, who had
learnt that morning that his posting to Lagos had been confirmed.

  “And you, Mr Resident Representative, I am told you are leaving us. Three years here, and you are leaving us,” he said grimly.

  “I was born in Kuwisha, and I studied abroad, and I travelled abroad. I have been in politics for thirty-three years. And I am still learning, each day I am learning. And you are leaving after three years, like nearly every other aid worker and diplomat. It’s the three-year cycle. The first year, you people are too optimistic, the second year you start to learn, the third year you decide we’re no good, and then you go, for home leave, and then on, somewhere else, to another posting.

  “I remember that man Welensky, Sir Roy Welensky, who was Prime Minister of the Federation, the Federation of Northern and Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which I helped destroy,” he said with satisfaction.

  “The federation of these three countries we now call Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi, was bad for the black man. So I destroyed it. And I was called the Destroyer of Federation – DOF.”

  The president grew nostalgic as he remembered these political tales from the past.

  “I was no friend, no friend at all, of Welensky, but he said one wise thing. I did not like Welensky, but he said one wise thing,” Nduka repeated.

  “Welensky did not like expatriates, people from Britain. They said they loved Africa, loved Aaafricaaa,” said Nduka, simpering. He then gave a contemptuous snort.

  “They loved the lifestyle, not Africa; they came to work in the colonies but left their hearts in England. Welensky, he refused to encourage this. ‘I want civil servants who go home every night,’ he said, ‘not every three years.’ ”

  Nduka chuckled.

  “I too, want civil servants, technical experts, advisers and consultants, who go home every night, not every year, or leave permanently every two or three years. Kuwisha, poor Kuwisha.”

  He took a sip of mineral water, and invited Hardwicke to drink his fizzy orangeade.

  “There are more Europeans in Africa today than there were at independence,” said Nduka.

  “Excluding South Africa, of course, where the whites seem to be running away. But these new Europeans are second-raters, Mr President of the World Bank. You send us second-raters, and you send your clever, spoilt children, who treat Kuwisha like they treat Africa, as an adventure playground.”

  Nduka then switched tack, challenging the accuracy of the Bank’s figures on inflation with a masterly exposition on the impact of the velocity of money supply on the prices of basic foodstuffs in high density townships. Fingers had to admit that he had a point. However, since the net result was that inflation was running at an annual rate of twenty-seven per cent rather than thirty-one per cent, it was of limited import. But by the time Dr Nduka, whose Edinburgh degree in econometrics had been hailed as one of the best for a generation, had concluded his opening peroration, Hardwicke was a beaten man.

  Nduka brushed aside Hardwicke’s questions: the new airport in the north, conveniently close to the presidential home but unsuitable for the tourist trade it was supposed to serve, the contract for the new privately owned power station which would provide electricity at an extortionate rate, and the unpaid tax on sugar imported by his brother-in-law. All were being investigated by various commissions of inquiry.

  The president kept back what was probably his best card until last.

  “I have acted against what you call the political banks,” said Nduka, “those banks that are owned by the state, and which have made some loans, big loans, to civil servants, and army officers, and supporters of my party – but without proper security. I investigated this matter. And I am sorry to say that it is not only supporters of my party who have received these loans.

  “I investigated very carefully, and to my great unhappiness, I have learnt that a certain Newman Kibwana, a young lawyer with big ideas, who has been invited to London, as a guest of the British Government, received a very, very large loan from one of our banks, with no security. I am unhappy,” said the president slyly, “because when he received the loan he was an MP for my party. I will not tolerate this.”

  The news would be a dreadful blow to all who supported democracy in Kuwisha. The papers would have a field day with the information. Newman Kibwana, “darling of the donors” as the Kuwisha Standard called him. The disclosure could hardly have come at a more embarrassing time for Hardwick Hardwicke, the British High Commissioner, the German ambassador, and others who had feted him as the new generation of Kuwisha politicians. Even papers that were sympathetic to the opposition would agree: Kibwana’s career looked over.

  And there was yet another card that Nduka pulled out of his sleeve. All in all, another nineteen politicians were being investigated. Disclosure of the names would be dynamite, particularly if, as the gossip had it, one of them was Anna Nugilu, on whom hopes for democracy were now pinned.

  The president still had not finished.

  “My brother-in-law has been suspended,” said Dr Nduka. “I refuse to tolerate corruption, and it is especially shameful that he is involved” – he corrected himself – “allegedly involved in a scandal involving maize imports. I just wish that you had raised this matter with me earlier, Mr Hardwicke, whenever it was that you knew about it.”

  Hardwicke had been outmatched, outclassed, and outmanoeuvred. Dr Nduka had not bothered to even glance at the dossier, laboriously assembled over the past seven months, and given to Nduka by Hardwicke at the start of their meeting.

  Less than an hour later, he stumbled out of State House, blinking in the blinding afternoon sunlight. On the short drive from State House to the Intercontinental Hotel, he spoke only once. When he did it was with the quiet compassion, the heartfelt sincerity, and the near-missionary zeal with which he had approached Africa’s problems:

  “Fuck ’em . . .”

  Fingers grimaced at the recollection. The draft was all but complete. He looked again at what he had written under the headline “Promises and Challenges in Kuwisha”, and struck off the “s”:

  “World Bank President Hardwick Hardwicke concluded his meeting today with President Nduka with a profound appreciation of both the commitment of the country’s leaders to the economic reform agenda and the acute challenge they face in this, one of the world’s poorest countries.”

  This language was blunt enough, and Fingers was confident that the message would get through. The rest was plain sailing. Thirty minutes later it was done.

  “Kuwisha symbolises both the challenges and the hopes of Africa,” it concluded: “A country that has its own sense of economic direction and is actively engaged in continuously refining its thinking on where it wants to go and how to get there.”

  Not bad at all, thought Fingers. True, it bore a close similarity to a Bank statement he had issued at the end of a mission visit to Ethiopia, but that was in the late 90s. Who would check? And why waste a good communiqué?

  16

  “Only the faithless wife hears the hippo’s cough”

  Through gummy, bloodshot eyes, Titus Ntoto took in a bleak vision. He was half buried in a muddy, oozing, stinking wasteland, the lair of glossy black crows, foraging dogs, ferreting rats and an occasional dead cat. It was all suffused with a stench that entered his very soul. The probing snout of a pig, trailing its uprooted tether, and a tentative tug at his bare foot by one of the dogs, jerked Ntoto into semi-consciousness. For a few moments he believed he had died and was waking up in Hell.

  “Could be worse,” thought Ntoto. “If I could only catch that pig . . .”

  Between bouts of vomiting foul liquid, he saw what in his befuddled state he thought could only be the Devil’s policemen, advancing on him. Perhaps together they could trap the pig. He started to salivate at the prospect of roast pork. And then, as the men loomed closer, he realised the grim reality: he had fallen into the clutches of the man whom he feared and hated above all others – Mayor Willifred Guchu, close friend of the president, and sworn ene
my of the Mboya Boys in general and Titus Ntoto in particular.

  It was rotten luck for Ntoto. Usually Mayor Guchu avoided Kireba like the plague, and left his lieutenants to collect rents from the occupants of the many properties he owned in the slum. But with a visitor of the importance of Hardwick Hardwicke due, Guchu had felt it was necessary to inspect the arrangements for himself, in advance.

  Ntoto made a brave attempt to escape. Alas, he had reckoned without Sergeant Sikono, head of the mayor’s corps of fixers, gofers and bodyguards. Sikono, who had the physique of an Idi Amin but, in the judgment of his friends, lacked the late Ugandan dictator’s sensitivity, was quick to intervene. He gripped the boy by the ankle as he slithered towards the water pipe from which he had been disgorged, for all the world like a snake desperately seeking refuge under a stone.

  Sikono had several scores to settle. Ntoto had been the bane of his life, jeering him and his police colleagues as they went about their business of extracting bribes from market vendors in Kireba, demanding protection money from Asian shopkeepers, and imposing arbitrary taxes on resentful motorists.

  He scooped up Ntoto effortlessly, and dangled him at the end of an outstretched arm, taking care not to let the rest of the boy’s body touch him:

  “I’ve got you at last, you little tick who lives on a hyena’s arse.”

  Ntoto whimpered again with fear and apprehension, for he had no illusions about the fate that awaited him. Mayor Guchu quickly intervened. It was too public a place for the thrashing he planned to unleash. Like Sergeant Sikono, he had good reason to loathe Ntoto. More than once the tyres of the mayoral Rolls Royce had mysteriously developed punctures when Ntoto and his colleagues had been seen in the vicinity. He motioned to the sergeant: