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 £200 million 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 a drop in the ocean. On this side of the hemisphere, for example, it’s almost common knowledge that some of the wealthiest individuals 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 elderly heist masters amnesty if only they do us one favour: we’ll get o this in a moment.
Topping Group-H before their dreadful game against Colombia last evening, Senegal, Africa’s only remaining team—besides France, of course—at the World Cup in Russia, tragically did a Devon Loch on us. We’ll need to set up a commission of inquiry led by Uganda, to investigate who’s been casting spells on these African soccer teams. Due to an obvious conflict of interest, no Nigerian representatives can be allowed to sit on this commission that’s investigating potential voodoo.
It’s extremely puzzling how the African teams are exceptionally good at raising our hopes at the preliminary stages of the competition, only to match that up by raising our blood-sugar levels at the most crucial phases of the tournament. If this isn’t some 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 more than heartache home from the tournament, would it be such a difficult thing for our leaders to secretly conspire to steal the World Cup trophy? These beloved elders have got advanced skills and literally a wealth of experience doing this kind of shady 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 an old man and his accomplices were all career thieves. Basically, stealing is what they did for a living, just like those leaders you’re thinking about right now! This should be motivation enough for them.
Overall, I sense that there’s more faith in our wonderful leaders teaming up to pull off the sleekest heist ever known to man 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 theft, the only time we’ll ever come close to the World Cup trophy via the turf might be right about that time when pigs start to fly!
[Edit] A conversation on this old story has recently revived on X. Join in:
