Our MPs have decided they cannot be outdone by a democracy as young as South Africa. This is what unfolded west of Main Mall. A member of parliament called Ignatius seemed to have ignited and activated the speaker’s wrath bones from the depth of his anatomy by talking about how lack of insulin in health facilities in Francistown has resulted in a few deaths.
The speaker promptly switched off the MP’s microphone because apparently that was not the topic under discussion. Switching off the mic is the speaker’s first line of ammunition. When MPs want to disturb protocol and derail parliament they will claim that they have been sent by their constituents as they are representatives of the people.
This is a ploy to blackmail the speaker into getting indulgence to sin and rock the boat a little. When they are not off topic you will never hear them prefacing their deliberations with the ‘I have been sent by Batswana in my constituency’ prelude. But the MP was on a run-it-till-it-breaks high and kept launching missiles pushing his voice almost 3 octaves higher. The speaker brought out his heaviest artillery – a bevy of action-thirsty policemen. It was voice versus muscle and the odds were heavily stacked against the MP.
The decibels kept pushing up but the policemen calmly lifted the MP and continued to ‘usher’ him out of the hallowed house. Most MPs’ weights hover around heavyweight on a boxing scale and it was comical to see how the law enforcement officers seemed to be dealing with a flyweight as they went about the task of ejecting the MP. There are 3 things that our police are very good at and that is lifting and ejecting MPs out of parliament, certifying copies of national identity cards and charging motorists for traffic infractions.
So the police officers went through the task with the vigour of eager fresh graduates from the Police College. You could see these were masters at work and the skill had been honed through years of practice. As we were filing this in the Funny Parliament Episodes file another war erupted as two youthful MPs traded copious amounts of bile to the point where one of them delivered a chilling (absolutely no pun intended) invitation to go outside and slug it out. There was also a promise to grind the adversary into little powdery pieces.
This method of solving arguments was popular in the early ages and seems to have lost favour amongst the country folk. This was when brain cells were located around the arm muscles and when evolution was slowly gathering steam. In the subsequent parliamentary sessions though I saw the same MP. He has not been turned into powder yet and is clearly enjoying his pre-powder days. Cyclone Freddy is just around the corner and is usually characterized by heavy winds and rains and so the MP should as much as possible ensure he is not turned into powder yet until Freddy subsides. This is further proof that MPs have other skills besides promising people jobs, roads and bridges. There was some great news though this past week. The real speaker who has been on a medical hiatus returned to duty. The whole country is excited.
People are excited mainly because they are tired of employees in acting positions. Acting PSs, acting CEOs, acting directors, acting girlfriends etc and one starts getting the feeling that the whole civil service is a street in Hollywood where almost half the town’s people are actors. PPP has been the captain of the ship in an acting capacity but there was a general feeling that he had an ‘L’ firmly stuck to his back like all learner drivers. So sometimes he would steer the ship to choppy waters and even graze icebergs in the process. And truth is when the speaker – the real one - is holding fort the ship sails more smoothly.
(For comments, feedback and insults email [email protected]) Thulaganyo Jankey is a training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email [email protected].
