While you munched away at sumptuous servings of turkey and unhealthy quantities of red meat over the long Easter holiday of 2015, a bunch of elderly English men had all the time in the world to bore their way into an underground high-security vault somewhere in south-east London. In what could be one of the most audacious heists in recent memory, the Hatton Garden bandits made away with an estimated £200million in precious stones and cash. They executed their job so good, it even inspired a number of Hollywood feature films.
However, compared to the tales you haven’t heard, or the whispers you’ve heard in the corridors around here, that fortune is probably a drop in the ocean. On this side of the sphere, for example, it’s almost common knowledge that some of the wealthiest people on the African continent are not the businessmen, but the politicians. One group scapegoating the other.
The reason you’re unlikely to find, say, a President, appearing on the Forbes’ annual rankings of Africa’s richest, is that the business magazine has had a long-standing policy that forbids Heads of Government featuring on that list. The obvious reason is that it’s difficult to determine between wealth that has been amassed as a result of individual entrepreneurial prowess and that which is derived illicitly through positions of power. The line is always blurry.
Take Nigerian former military man, Babangida, for instance. He’s said to be one of Africa’s wealthiest ex-rulers. Unfortunately, he’s also alleged to have bagged a whooping $12bn from the nation’s coffers during his reign as President of Nigeria and stashed it away in some offshore bank account.
Like Babangida, most, if not, all, of these guys—whose average age oddly tends to be about 70years, always seem to get away with such wrongdoings even after they’ve left power. If they ever do!
However, if you’ll agree with me, I think we could consider granting these heist masters amnesty if only they do us one favour.
Topping Group-H before their dreadful game against Colombia last evening, Senegal, the continent’s only standing team [besides France, of course!] at the World Cup in Russia, did a Devon Loch on us.
We might need to set up a commission of inquiry led by Uganda—who could possibly be better than us at inquiries!—that will investigate who’s been casting spells on these African soccer teams. Due to an obvious conflict of interest, though, no Nigerian representatives can be allowed to sit on this commission.
The African teams are excellent at raising our hopes at the preliminary stages of the competition and then raising our blood-sugar levels at the most crucial phases of the tournament. If this isn’t high-grade witchcraft, I don’t know what it is.
Since it’s a more-than plausible hypothesis that many of our African Heads of Government are embezzlers, and that our soccer boys have consistently excelled at bringing nothing home from the tournament: neither gold nor silver, nor wood, nor straw; would it be such a difficult thing for our leaders to secretly conspire to steal the World Cup trophy?
These beloved elders have got exceptional skills and, literally, a wealth of experience doing this kind of business. For a prestigious 6kg lump of gold, this can’t be too much to ask!
Not to mention that the guy that masterminded the London heist was a 76-year old man and his accomplices were all career thieves. Basically, stealing is what they did for a living, just like those people you’re thinking about right now. This should be motivation enough for them.
Overall, I sense that there’s more faith in our great leaders teaming up to pull this off and bring that trophy home, than there is in our African soccer boys outclassing the rest of the world to deliver the $20m trophy. And quite honestly, from the looks of it, if we don’t plan to execute this grand heist, the only time we’ll take the World Cup on the turf might be around that time when pigs start to fly!
