Tunde Asaju

By Tunde Asaju

• So, what ‘s that noise in your neighbourhood?
• My neighbour lives in the 12^th
• Was he beating his wife?
• Hell no! He doesn’t want to end up in jail.
• Not in Africa, a Kenyan man just bit his wife’s lips.
• Happens everywhere. In 2012, a jealous Swedish professor cut and ate his wife’s lower lip when she asked for a divorce. He wanted to stop her from ever kissing again. My neighbour was angry with his child.
• Oh, the child broke curfew.
• Not really, kid’s fond of borrowing and losing things.
• Was the child beaten for that?
• Well, I’ll discipline my own kids for that kind of behaviour. The unwritten rule my father taught me still stands – what you cannot afford is not good for you.
• Your father.
• Was he African?
• What kind of question is that?
• Well, I had to ask, never take anything for granted these days. Anyway, did you tell your neighbour to go softly on the poor thing?
• He who goes a-borrowing ends up a-sorrowing?
• Says who in the credit-ridden 21^st Century society? Everyone owes someone.
• Show me one person who goes smiling as they go borrowing?
• I’ll show you 52 high-flying, elegantly dressed bad debtors recently falling over each other recently in China.
• Did you say 52 gentlemen?
• And high-flying people?
• Yes, they went with the bottom of their box, to out dress their lenders.
• I see you’re one of them.
• One of whom? God forbid.
• You are one of those who insist that Africa should not borrow from China to finance its developmental needs.
• You mean to finance the corruption, greed and ostentatious lifestyle of its rulers. Wasn’t it said that God created Africa and buried every treasure mankind needs for development underneath the soil?
• You’ve not heard that the devil planted the worst managers of those resources on top of the soil so that instead of being eternal lenders, we are perpetual borrowers?
• But seriously, China is our friend; they don’t attach preconditions to their loans. They may steal technology, but they’re not selfish, they share it with the rest of the world.
• They don’t discriminate between despots, murderers, opposition-slayers and pretentious pseudo-democrats. They have no barometer for measuring human rights, instead they send in plastic rice. Look here my friend, every lender has an interest. Only last week Kenya deported a Chinese man caught on video calling Africans, including Uhuru Kenyatta monkeys. While Africa opens its doors to its Chinese lenders, it continues to make certain cities and clubs no-go areas for blacks even in businesses they operate here in Africa.
• Well, you know what they say about shit money.
• Sbit money doesn’t smell. Zesco, Zambia’s electricity company is about to be taken over by the Chinese for defaulting on loan repayment.
• Borrowing is not bad as long as you honour your pledge to pay back.
• Africa has no capacity to pay back. The Europeans got it wrong.
• How?
• They should have given loans instead of trying to take over the land.
• They did and still do give loans and yes, the land belongs to them. Check it out. Of the 52 rulers that went to China, only seven of them wore their national dress, the others were trying to outdo their colonial masters in their slave attire. They went borrowing, but they won’t pay. Half of them would be dead by the time the loans and interests are due, the other half would be out of office spending part of the money as pensions.
• They won’t pay because they don’t have the capacity to pay.
• Capacity has nothing to do with it; they won’t pay because they’ll mismanage everything.
• Sixty billion dollars for a population of 1.2 billion people, at this rate our grandchildren would be grovelling at the feet of the Chinese for the next twelve generations?
• Chai!
• Yet, these fawning beggars began spending the money before the ink had dried on the loan agreement.
• Hahaa, how?
• The all-male club brought their flamboyant wives along. Even Sai Baba known to leave his wife behind while holidaying in his London clinic went with his wife and one of his daughters.
• So, they’ll visit Guangzhou market.
• Perhaps! The jury is still out on the worth of their handbags.
• They went a-borrowing with Guchi and Versace handbags?
• You’re behind fashion. They went with Hèrmes Birkin bags, the top of the brands; brand new, they pack five or six figures.
• Well, they could afford it.
• They should’ve sold those bags on e-Bay so that Sai Baba could for once buy himself his re-election form.
• Well, they don’t have to worry, Sai Babarians have the old man’s back, and they usually contribute their widow’s mite. It’s the ultimate expression of love for the most frugal president anywhere in Africa, especially one who loves to go to China and come back with loans.

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