Isaac Makwala: Not For Children

Thulaganyo Jankie | Monday May 17, 2021 15:38

This was not the speaker who routinely puts ministers in their place for various infractions like calling a point of order when there’s no point of order, calling a point of procedure when there is no point of procedure or even calling them to order because their barbers didn’t do a good job on their heads.

Nowadays because the Parliament is conducted virtually the head has become a very important grooming detail. Now those who know who Isaac Makwala is, would remember how some security men from Idiotville at some athletics meet tried to bar him from competing in a race because he had caught some highly contagious virus called norovirus.

The wretched Idiotvillers ended up with egg in their faces when our man was given permission to run alone and with the world pitying him and cheering him on, he managed to advance to the next stage. We resisted the urge to say to the Idiotville heroes ‘eat that’. Another silver lining from this saga was that in a rare defiance of biology and/or physiology our man’s heart instantly changed colour to white after running alone. But what is it with athletics competitions and viruses in recent times.

In 2016 at the Olympics in Brazil it was the zika virus. In 2017 at the world championships it was the norovirus. And in 2020 just when we were about to have the Olympics their mean uncle coronavirus which is an improved version of the other two happened along. Enough about depressing viruses. The bottom-line is, like we say in our language, Badman ‘is not for children’ meaning he is much more serious business than the fallout between the president they used to call ‘my president’ and the one they call ‘the president’.

So when you deal with him you better have your ducks in a nice neat row. Remember also that he managed to inebriate the ex-president (who’s a teetotaler) to the point where the latter promised to build a stadium in his honour. Ok, we await the first brick to be cast but I believe it will happen. Stadia take a long time to construct.

The National Stadium renovation which was supposed to make it ready for the 2010 World Cup is a case in point. By the time it was completed the 2010 and 2014 World Cups were a distant and hazy memory. What more of a stadium that will be built from scratch.

The citizens must be very patient and in the meantime to keep the fire burning ascribe to their kids names like Isaac, Mmamakwala, MmaBadman and whatever version has traces of Isaac Makwala.

This is why we say Makwala is really ‘not for children’. Not to be outdone our erstwhile sprint queen intimated athletes would be rich if they were playing football.

Clearly our athletes have more issues than a complete collection of National Geographic. As every athlete literally threatened to get off track – staying in one’s lane is a very important facet of track running - the minister hastily put together a press conference that was meant to whip the athletes in line.

Whether this worked or not remains to be seen as we await the next race, post-race interviews and Facebook rants from the athletes. Good luck Olympians.

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